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f 



UNCLE BEN. 


Lire 


AS niLDA rOUND IT 


BY 

Claude Olive 





•A day of gold, from out an age of iron. 

Is all that life allows the luckiest sinner: 



Copyright, 

1897 

Mrs. Emma C. Oliver. ^ x 


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To. my kind friend. cJudge B. W. Pope, this 
this little book, written in response to his 
encouragement, and unfaltering faith in my 
ability, is gratefully dedicated .... 



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7. ^ v. V f'V' . 

• .•v--*» ■-* ■ *■ 










LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


PART I 


CHAPTER I. 

"‘Into each life some rain must fall. 

If this were all — oh ! if this were all 
That into each life some rain must fall 
There were fainter sobs in poet’s rhyme, 

There were fewer wrecks on the shores of Time.” 

My experience and observation of life assure me that 
“Life — if it be not all smiles — it is not all sneers, 

It admits honest laughter and needs honest tears.” 

But alas, and alas! “In lives such as ours” there are so 
many tears and so little laughter. 

There is so much rain, and so little sunshine. 

It is not my intention to write a regular autobiography. 
I only wish to tell what I know of life as I have found it. I do 
not remember very much of my childhood and early youth. 
I only know that the memory of its unhappiness clings to 
me yet, like the lingering sadness and heartache of some 
unhappy, half-forgotten dream. 

“Why were you unhappy in your childhood? A happy 
childhood is the birthright of every immortal soul.” The 
answer is not hard to find. “He that runs may read.” The 
need of being loved has always been the strongest need of 


5 


6 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


my life — and it is the one need Fate has been so grudging: 
in satisfying. 

I was only one among many children, and being neither 
the beloved firstborn, nor the last sweet baby pet, I had 
no special seat of favor in our large household. Quite the 
contrary, for I was gifted by nature with a willful, wayward, 
passionate disposition. I was highstrung, headstrong, lov- 
ing, affectionate, impulsive, impressionable, and possessed 
of that sensibility which so often proves the curse of a 
woman’s life. No one understood me, and I was considered 
a “queer child.” Early in my career I received the un- 
pleasant pseudonym, “spit-fire.” 

Even the mother who gave me birth never understood 
my disposition, and many times was heard to remark to her 
friends: “I do not know what I shall ever do with Hilda; 
she is the smartest, brightest child I have, but, oh! she is 
so hard to control.” Love was the keynote, but she found 
it not. My mother was a good woman — honest, upright, 
intelligent, pure, and of innate refinement — but, alas! like 
thousands of the world’s mothers, she did not understand 
her children or their souls’ needs; she believed she had per- 
formed her whole duty when she provided her little brood 
with all the “creature comforts” and the advantages of 
education. Everything was abundantly provided for the 
physical and mental welfare of her children, and I may also 
add, she did what she could (according to her light) for 
their spiritual natures. Every Sunday morning we were 
arrayed in our pretty little dresses, our handsome sashes, 
and dainty shoes (which, to the delight of our childish 
hearts, were blue, or red, or bronze Morocco), and with 
our curly pates crowned with jaunty headgear sent off to 
Sunday school to “learn our catechism and be good.” 
And on Sunday afternoons, when I begged her to let me 
visit some little friend, she would always refuse, saying it 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


7 


was “wrong to visit on Sunday.” And when I was older 
and had learned how to read, she would make me get my 
Bible and sit down where she could “keep her eye on me,” 
and command me to “read your Bible.” Then I hated the 
Bible! I said to myself over and over that I did not want 
to read such a hard, old book — that I could not under- 
stand it, anyhow — and that it wouldn’t do me a bit of good 
to sit there and read it, when I wanted to enjoy myself 
out of doors among the flowers, and in the sunshine, with 
one of my little friends. 

Oh, how I hated it all! how my poor little, wicked heart 
filled up with rebellious feelings until it seemed as if it 
would burst! Oh, how my throat ached, and how I 
wanted to cry because I could never do what I wanted to 
do, and was forever being restrained ! 

I have often wondered (in these later years) if John Rus- 
kin really knew anything about the nature of girl? when 
he said: “There is not one restraint you put on a good 
girl’s nature — there is not one check you give to her in- 
stincts of affection or of effort — which will not be indelibly 
written on her features, with a hardness which is all the 
more painful because it takes away the brightness from 
the eyes of innocence, and the charm from the brow of 
virtue.” 

“But you were not a good girl,” perhaps some one 
thinks. Maybe not; it is a problem over which I have 
long puzzled. Was I born “bad”? Was I more wicked 
by nature than other children? Or was it force of sur- 
rounding influences, circumstance — what you will — that 
cultivated and brought out all the latent evil, which lies 
like a sleeping beast in every human heart, and smothered 
and choked to death the little good seed which is sown by 
“some good angel” even while the enemy is planting the 
tares? 


8 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


Hard to say! This only I know: that from earliest rec- 
ollections I have known nothing but “restraint to all my 
instincts of affection and effort/’ 

“Restraint” has hounded me all my life — through child- 
hood, youth, young womanhood, wifehood, motherhood, 
and now — even now — I feel its cruel grip at my throat; I 
feel it on my heart. I feel its baneful effect on my whole 
life. How many, many times I have forced myself to 
stifle, to smother out the sweet human impulses of my 
heart, toward my fellow-creatures I 

Not long ago, down into our midst swooped the death 
angel, plucking a sweet young rosebud just blossoming 
into womanhood — the mother’s pride and joy — and, bear- 
ing it away, left one home desolate — one woman with a 
broken heart; and I, who had known all the pain of giving 
up the “loved dead,” felt my own heart throb and ache 
with sympathy for that bereaved mother, and for one mo- 
ment, one short-lived moment, I felt an overwhelming 
impulse to go to her, to put my arms around her, to try 
and comfort her. But I swept the feeling from me, I 
stifled the sweet impulse, and no one was the wiser. 

Another instance of “restraint” comes up before me. 
One winter night when the weather was bitter cold, that 
terrible monster, fire, laid its greedy hold on my child- 
hood’s home; red tongues darted here and there, devour- 
ing with fiendish rapidity the sheltering roof. 

The dainty little woman who was living there at the 
time sprung from her rudely broken slumber, stood for one 
moment looking in dazed horror upon that destroying ele- 
ment, felt a pity in her heart for another’s loss ; then, wom- 
anlike, forgetful of Self, sped through the streets in her 
thin nightgown, and with the biting cold and the cruel 
stones chilling and wounding her delicate, bare feet, sum- 
moned aid in time to save the dear old house, with little 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


9 


loss. When I heard of it I said to myself.: “I will write 
that heroic little woman a nice letter, and tell her how 
much I appreciate her unselfish kindness and admire her 
noble bravery.” But I restrained the impulse and put it 
from me. Such is the force of habit, and I have lived so 
long under restraint. Has it left its impress on my face 
in a “hardness” which is painful? 

I cannot answer the question for myself. I go to my 
mirror in search of a truthful answer, but I find our mir- 
rors are much like our friends — they tell us that which 
they think will please. And my mirror knows that I do 
not want to think of my face as “hardened.” 

“Well,” I ask myself, for I am given to introspection as 
well as retrospection, “what matters so greatly the impress 
on the face? Examine the heart. Is it hardened?” 

I do not know; and yet that heart always cries out: 
“What a pity to kill a good impulse! Is the world so preg- 
nant with kindness, love, good will, sympathy, that even 
one kindly impulse should be thus restrained and lost?” 

♦ Some writer has said: 

“A virtuous deed should never be delayed. 

The impulse comes from heaven; and he who strives 

A moment to repress it disobeys 

The God within his mind.” 

If that writer’s words are true, how many, many times I 
have disobeyed the God within my mind! 

But I have wandered far away from the fields of child- 
hood, and find myself gleaning in the tangled, matted 
wildwood of this “Present Thou.” And if I am to tell of 
“Life — As Hilda Found It,” I must retrace my steps and 
follow the path that leads from the cradle to this “Present 
Thou.” 


CHAPTER II. 


“Ah, what would the world be to us 
If the children were no more? 

We should dread the desert behind us 
Worse than the dark before.” 

Wordsworth speaks of a child as “A garland of seven 
lilies wrought.” “Yet, childhood is not interesting!” 

That is the speech of a cynic, for childhood foreshadows 
manhood or womanhood. A morbid, unhappy, abnormal 
child will rarely develop into a happy, normal man or 
woman, unless surrounded by the tenderest love and 
trained with the wisest, most judicious care. 

I see only a dim picture of myself — of my life as it was 
before dear father’s death. (Father was the best friend I 
ever had, but he died when I was just nine years old.) 
The picture is pale and blurred, but its surface bears no 
indelible prints of bitter pain, such as came into my life 
even ere I stood — 

“With reluctant feet, where the brook and river meet.” 

Everybody, except father, said I was “bad, and had an 
ugly temper.” And I did have an ugly temper. One of 
my earliest recollections is the cruel, deliberate murder of 
a beautiful wax doll, with blue eyes and yellow curls, be- 
cause my sisters teased me cruelly, and then laughed at 
my baby and called her “red-headed” and “foxy.” I was 
the youngest at that time, and only three years old. In 
my impotent rage (for I could do nothing to punish my 
big sisters) I dashed my beautiful baby down upon the 
hard bricks and broke her into atoms. The moment the 


10 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


II 


wicked deed was done I was bitterly sorry, but repent- 
ance came too late then, as it has often done since. 

Well, when mother discovered the dead baby — the 
pieces put together and wrapped in a burial shroud, await- 
ing interment — she asked: “Who did this?” “Oh, mamma, 
I doed it!” I cried, my chin beginning to quiver, and tears, 
more tears, beginning to well up into my eyes. “Dem 
bad chillun made me angwy, an’ I f’owed her down on dc 
b’icks an’ b’oke her b’ains out — and, oh! mamma, my 
dolly is dead! My dolly is dead!” 

“It is you who are ‘bad,’ ” mother said. “Go to your 
room this minute and remain there until I come.” 

I knew what that meant; with her coming would come 
the hour of reckoning. Oh! if mother had only taken me 
in her arms and consoled me in my bitter child-agony and 
remorse; if she had only talked to me kindly and told me 
how wrong it was to yield to such ugly passions — and 
how much my conduct grieved her — I think I would have 
been a better woman today. But when she came to my 
room she simply sat down in a little, low rocker, placed 
me across her lap, took off her high-heeled slipper and 
proceeded to administer a just punishment. To this day 
I hate the memory of that high-heeled slipper a^ much as 
it is in my nature to hate anything. But I learned early 
in life that “punishment follows sin.” 

In our family there were no boys. That was the one 
and only defect (so far as I ever knew) in the perfect happi- 
ness of father’s life. He longed for a son as only a man can 
long for one. (W omen do not put such stress on the sex of 
their darlings — they want children.) 

In lieu of something better, father called me his “little 
boy.” Wherever he went I was his inseparable compan- 
ion. Every day he took me to the store with him, and 
there, surrounded by his friends, I was perched upon a 


12 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


barrel and required to repeat one “speech’' after another, 
amid much applause and admiration (?) from our “lords of 
creation.” And I liked it, though I know now it was not 
the best school of training — for a girl. Everybody called 
me “smart” and “bright” and I loved to be considered 
smart and bright; but it made me very angry one day, 
when I heard a lady call me “precocious.” I thought it 
was a term of opprobrium. 

Although father was a merchant, he took long rides into 
the country almost daily, for he liked hunting and fishing; 
of course I went with him. I remember well how much 
I admired my father, and how grandly he sat his magnifi- 
cent black horse. Child that I was, I knew nothing then 
of centaurs, but now, whenever I recall a mental picture 
of the long-dead past, I think of the old legends of centaurs, 
with father as the central figure — the noblest of them all. 
He was tall, very tall, and beautifully proportioned — a 
Hercules — an Apollo Belvedere; he was straight as an 
arrow and held himself as kings should do; his jet-black 
hair waved back from a brow white as Carrara marble — 
broad and high, showing a magnitude of intellect; his eyes 
were blue (they made no other impression on my childish 
brain — at least, none that lingers with me now) ; his mouth 
was square cut and firm ; his chin of that shape which physi- 
ognomists assert as denoting immense will power. I know 
nothing of such things, and have but little faith in any- 
thing of the kind, but I must admit that I am something 
of a skeptic. 

The last, but not the least eulogium I have to bestow on 
my dear, dead father is to say that he was “an honest 
man, the noblest work of God.” 

In those old, half-forgotten days, I used to ride with him 
hour after hour, sitting behind him on his big, black horse, 
clinging to his coat with one little hand, while I employed 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


13 


the other in pointing out the beautiful wild flowers, the 
white, woolly sheep, the cute little saucy goats, and what- 
ever other objects of interest we chanced to pass. We 
would ride and ride, and my poor little tired feet, hanging 
down against the horse’s glossy side, became like leaden 
weights and lost all sense of feeling. 

Today it was perhaps a squirrel hunt out in the heart 
of the great, wild, lonely forest. Ugh! how I hated the 
solitude and quiet of those limitless woods! How it made 
me shudder to see father creeping stealthily aroimd the 
trunks of the great, tall, solemn trees, sighting for the poor 
little saucy squirrels, who, all unconscious of the nearness 
of their awful fate, were grimacing and shaking their soft, 
furry, frisky tails in the very face of death. 

I spent the weary time of waiting as best I could, some- 
times hunting the sweet, wild, modest violets, half hidden 
in their dress of green, and today — 

“The smell of violets hidden in the green 
Pour(ed) back into my empty soul and frame 
The times when I remember to have been” — not 
Joyful — but — “free from blame.” 

How it used to startle me, as I bent over the dear, 
sweet, innocent flowers, my senses lost for the moment to 
surrounding objects, my spirit wandering in other worlds, 
worlds born of my own strange, weird imagination, worlds 
peopled, not with human beings, but with fairy elves and 
funny little, big-eyed, distorted Brownies — to have a huge 
bay-burr, with its countless red waxen beads, drop sud- 
denly at my side with a heavy thud, breaking the solemn 
stillness of the great forest But I would never allow my- 
self to scream, because father had bade me “be quiet.” 

Oh, how glad I always was, when father, growing weary 


14 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


of his sport, made the welkin ring with his loud halloo 
and his “Come, my little boy, ’tis time for us to move on.” 

Then he would stride through the forest, with me closely 
following, like some mighty giant followed by one of Gul- 
liver’s Lilliputs, whose chubby limbs found it hard work 
to keep their owner in sight. 

When he reached the place where he had fastened Prince 
(poor Prince! his fate was not “the common fate of all” — 
horses — for he was killed by lightning) he would spring 
into the saddle and, reaching down, catch my little hand 
in his strong, firm grasp and swing me up behind him. 

How glad I was to be leaving the dismal woods! How 
sorry I was to be going home — for the moment I crossed 
its threshold I was sure to get into trouble. It seemed 
as if my evil genius was ever at my elbow, urging me to 
commit some folly, which never failed to bring in its train 
some dire punishment. Those punishments always seemed 
to me the quintessence of injustice, and out of all propor- 
tion to the offense, for I never meant to do wrong, and 
motive or intention is everything — or nearly so. 

And then, “When the trailing garments of the night 
swept through her marble halls,” we hied us home — 
father to the arms of a wife who loved and honored him; 
I to my loneliness and heart ache and childish sorrows. 
Alone in my room, I would remove my clothing and ex- 
amine the wound on my poor, bruised limb, where father’s 
saddle had pinched the tender flesh until it quivered under 
the touch of my chubby fingers. But I know now that I 
bore my suffering with the unflinching heroism of a Spar- 
tan. What would I not bear to be with father! Yet I 
was not happy with him. I was never happy; my poor 
little hungry heart was forever crying out for love — ^^for 
manifestations of love — kisses, caresses, and all those sweet 
little tender “nothings” that mean so much to the female 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


15 


heart. Aiid that childish cry for love — born in my heart 
so long ago — so long ago that I retain not the slightest 
memory of its natal hour — echoes in my heart today. 

Gifted by nature with a soul whose capacity for pain and 
sorrow equaled its capacity for joy and happiness, en- 
dowed with that unfortunate spirit (unfortunate when not 
kept in its proper channel) of restlessness, of eager ambi- 
tion, of a ceaseless, nameless longing and yearning for a 
something ever above and beyond my reach. Fate, with 
her cruel, relentless decree, poisoned the current of my life 
and snatched from me that which is the “birthright of 
every immortal soul — a happy childhood.” 


CHAPTER III. 


“Forever haltless hurries Time.’^ And I was “six, going 
on seven,” when one day, a “great aunt,” who was so im- 
mensely wealthy that she was like a queen on her throne, 
ruling her subjects with a rod of gold, passed through 
our town on her way home and stopped her carriage to 
speak to my mother, who was a great favorite of hers. I 
followed mother (though she did not know it), for I 
wanted to see the “big, fine ca’wyage” and I wanted aunt 
to notice me, and maybe call me “smart,” for oh, I did 
love to be praised ! 

So there I stood in the middle of the street, my dress 
soiled, my feet and head bare, my brown face well dusted 
from the carriage wheels, my brown hair hanging in rebel- 
lious waves about my neck and ears, and over my eyes. 
(But my hair usually hung over my eyes, until one day 
somebody made me angry by comparing it to a horse’s 
mane ; then I ran off to my room, locked the door, dragged 
a chair to the bureau, climbed up, and taking a pair of 
scissors, “whacked it off three ways for Sunday” — so my 
sisters said. Well, I couldn’t make the old scissors go 
straight. The harder I tried, the faster my tongue “wab- 
bled” and my lips moved, in that funny way children have 
of accompanying their hands with their tongue- and lips. 
But I got a whipping for that piece of “smartness.”) 

Directly aunt spied me and said: “Ah! whom have we 
here? It must be Maud Muller, with her feet so bare and 
her tattered gown.” 

i6 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


17 


Never shall I torget the look on mother’s face when she 
burned and saw poor little dirty me, standing there, like 
the little culprit I was; for when I saw that look of stern 
disapproval I began to wish that the ground would open 
and swallow me up, or that the big hills over behind our 
house would slide down and fall on me. 

“For shame, Hilda! to appear in aunt’s presence like 
that. Go straight to your room this instant — this very 
instant — and remain there until I come.’’ 

I always knew what her coming meant, and so I felt 
immensely relieved (as if some great burden had fallen 
from my heart) when aunt said, in her imperative way: 
“Oh, let the child alone; what matters a little dust? Aren’t 
we made of dust? Here, lift her into the carriage — I want 
to kiss her good-by.’’ And mother reluctantly obeyed, 
for no one ever contradicted the great and mighty rich 
woman, except my proud and independent father, who 
always declared aunt was “spoiled by the homage paid her 
wealth.’’ 

He was absent from home that day, but oftentimes his 
will and hers clashed, and then it was “When Greek meets 
Greek.’’ But father always came off victor, for, “all the 
world” knows, it is a waste of energy for a woman to op- 
pose a strong-willed, masterful man. 

But to return to the carriage. I felt good in it. I didn’t 
want to get out. Aunt said to me (as grown-up people 
often talk to children): “Don’t you want to go home with 
me and be my little girl for awhile?” 

And I quickly replied, “Yessum.” 

Mother held out her arms to me and said: “Come, kiss 
aunt good-by and jump out.” 

“But I don’t want to kiss aunt good-by, and I don’t 
want to jump out; I want to go home with her and yide 
in the big ca’wyage.” I never could pronounce my r’s 


i8 LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 

until I was a “great, big girl,” and the first word I ever 
learned to say with an “r” in it was Robert. Years after 
I thought of it, because “Robert” was the name of my first 
real lover. 

Like all children, I took advantage of the presence of 
company to urge my wants. I wanted to go with aunt; 
I thought it would be so delightful to be her little girl and 
to do as I pleased. She had no children, and I thought 
as I would be the only one I would be allowed my own 
sweet, free will. I remembered that I had had a little 
playmate who was an only child, and she had always had 
her own way in everything. 

The idea fascinated me. 

“Oh, aunt,” I begged, “do take me with you; do, please 
tell mother to let me go.” 

“Let the child go with me, Dorothy; I will take good 
care of her.” 

“But, aunt, the child is not dressed to go with you,” 
mother objected. 

“Well, never mind that; I will send Lucy (Lucy was 
aunt’s femme de chambre, as the French call it) down 
tomorrow; she can get what the child needs. 

It ended, of course, in my going home with aunt, and 
what a wonderful trip it was — to my childish mind! (It was 
really only eight or nine miles distant from my home.) I 
remember how tired I became before we reached our jour- 
ney’s end and how frightened I was when the carriage had 
to be driven through a large pond. I thought it was the 
big, big ocean father had told me about, and I expected 
every minute we would all be drowned. 

Years afterwards I walked, with my lover and a girl 
friend, out to that same pond. I remember well the day; 
it was a beautiful, balmy Sunday morning (we ought to 
have been at Sunday school) and the gentle breeze that 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


19 


swept over the bosom of that small, innocent body of 
water stirred it into little rippling waves, rocking to and 
fro the great, waxen water lilies rising so beautifully pure 
from the slimy surface of their home. 

My girl friend wandered off in search of woodland treas- 
ures, and my lover and I stood upon the bank, looking 
down into the water (that so many years ago had caused 
such terror to my childish heart) and renewing our youth- 
ful vows to be faithful while absent one from the other. ^ He 
was to leave home early the next morning in search of the 
fortune that was to be “ours.” 

I think it was George Eliot who once said: “In every 
parting there is an image of death.” That parting was our 
last. When I had news of him again he had passed be- 
yond “mortal ken.” 

One day, not long ago “Memory, a pensive Ruth, went 
gleaning the silent fields of childhood,” but she found no 
“golden grain,” no “morning sunlight fresh and fair.” As 
I stood, once more, in imagination, on the banks of that 
lily-crested pond, my sad thoughts began to weave them- 
selves into rhyme, and I made a few stanzas as a tribute 
to that first, sweet, innocent love of my early youth. 

It is poetry of the Silas Wegg order, perhaps; but I love 
it because it is the child of my brain. And we love our 
children none the less if they are weakly and puny. 

But I must not fail to relate the result of my first “pleas- 
ure trip.” It taught me a lesson which I have learned 
repeatedly in later years — that my greatest pleasure has 
always been in the anticipation. 

When the carriage drew up before a large, gloomy 
house and I was lifted out, more dead than alive, I began 
to wish I had not come. Everything was so big and lone- 
some and dismal. I wandered through the long halls and 
silent rooms, my heart aching for the sound of a child’s 


20 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


sweet laughter. Even the harsh accents of childish 
wrangle would have been sweetest music to my ears. One 
of the inmates of that somber house was a young woman 
who was a firm believer in ghosts, and who delighted in 
telling the most thrilling, blood-curdling stories of grave- 
yard adventures and nocturnal apparitions. The baneful 
effect of such stories on the mind of a nervous, sensitive, 
vividly imaginative child is beyond estimation. And 
though I stoutly declared I did not believe in ghosts and 
such things, yet I was terribly frightened and found a 
ghost in every shadow. 

In the back yard was an old gas cistern that had long 
ago fallen into disuse, and it was a deep, dark dungeon ol 
a hole, which my childish imagination peopled with hob- 
goblins and all the other uncanny creatures that figured 
in such tales as our black nurses were wont to cow us into 
obedience with. Back of the gas tank was the “family 
graveyard,” in one corner of the garden — a custom very 
much in vogue at that time. 

Altogether -my visit was not a pleasant one, and I soon 
longed to be at home again. After what seemed to me 
weary ages of endless waiting, mother sent our old car- 
riage driver to bring me home. He was riding an old, 
gentle horse, and he carried me in front, I was such a 
little child. 

Oh! how glad I was to be going home! My little heart 
was so full that it just bubbled over in incessant chatter. 

Every now and then we would come to a big mud hole 
and I would hold my breath and shut my eyes, for fear 
“Unc’ Abe” would let me fall into it. Finally I saw a very 
large one in front of us, and I cried out in great dismay; 

“Oh, Unc’ Abe! yonder comes a great big mud hole!” 

“Hyah! hyah! hyah!” laughed Unc’ Abe. “Yonder 
comes a mud hole; how is it coinin’, little Missy? Is it 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


21 


crawlin’, or walkin’, or runnin’?” All the rest of the way 
home Unc’ Abe teased me unmercifully, every once in a 
while breaking out into a chuckle and repeating to him- 
self, but in a very audible whisper: “Yonder comes a mud 
hole.” 

Well, I thought I should never hear the last of that mud 
hole. He told it to everybody he met, and when we got 
home he told it to mother, and then to father and then to 
each one of my sisters, separately ; and then he told it to the 
cook, the house maid, the washer woman, and all of them 
laughed at me — and I hated to be laughed at. But even 
after I was a grown woman and Unc’ Abe was so old that 
his hair was like wool, he would look at me with a merry 
twinkle in his old, faded eyes, and say, “Well, little Missy, 
do de mud holes trabel dese days?” 


CHAPTER IV. 

“Naught treads. so silent as the foot of Time.” 

When I was about seven years old I awaked one fine 
morning to find in mother’s arms a baby — a wonderful, 
new baby, that was brought (so they told me) during the 
night, on the Frank Pargoud, one of those fine, floating- 
palaces seldom seen today on the bosom of the great 
‘‘Father of Waters.” 

“Oh, my! what a lovely baby! Oh, please give it to me!” 
I cried, as soon as I could recover from my joyful surprise 
enough to speak. “I want it for my very own; and I’ll 
swap all my dollies, even my beautiful, new wax dolly with 
the yellow curls.” But they wouldn’t give me the baby 
to nurse; only sometimes they would put her in my arms 
and hold here there for a moment; but that didn’t satisfy 
me, and so I began to dream of finding dolls that were 
sure-enough, live babies. I never did love dolls as some 
children do; they couldn’t look at me and tell me how 
much they loved me, and I wanted something to love me. 

It was not long before I made the sad discovery that the 
beautiful new baby brought more of sorrow than joy into 
my life. I was forever having to give up some wish of my 
own, “to humor the baby.” I had no rights at all. My 
things were not my own. If the baby took a fancy to scrub 
the floor, with the golden curls of my “bestest” doll as a 
mop, I had to stand by and witness the cruel deed. When 
I wanted most to do something for myself, I had to sit 
and rock the cradle while nurse attended to some other 
duty. 


22 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


23 


I grew to be awfully jealous of, and disgusted with, that 
baby, though she had delighted me so much at first. 
(I wonder how many little girls have felt the same way?) 
When “the baby” grew and waxed strong, it was not long 
before the little wretch was shrewd enough to “take ad- 
vantage.” (Trust little children for being knowing.) 

But the little thing was very lovely, with her black, 
glossy curls, rosy cheeks, and dark blue eyes, like two 
great, velvety pansies. No wonder she was petted and 
spoiled. 

At last, one day the climax came, when “the baby” insisted 
on appropriating a little china doll father had just given 
me. I didn’t want to give it up, but mother made me, and 
that wrong filled my heart with the anger from which 
tragedies so often come. As soon as mother left the room 
I snatched my dolly, flew to the kitchen, caught up a big 
carving knife, laid my dolly’s head on a stone, and pro- 
ceeded to decapitate her. I raised the big knife high over 
my head, then brought it down with tremendous force. I 
never touched the doll, but I will carry to my grave an ugly 
scar on my left forefinger. Oh, I was a bad girl! and my 
punishment was a just one. I was forever doing something 
wrong, forever in mischief, forever getting scolded, and, 
unfortunately for me, I was never backward in speech, but 
always had a reply ready, no matter what the occasion. 
Whenever mother blamed me with anything, I was anxious 
to plead my cause — to defend myself. In this, again, I was 
misunderstood, for mother regarded such conduct as im- 
pudence. 

When I tried hardest to be good, I was most sure of do- 
ing something to incur somebody’s displeasure. And it 
hurt me deeply, cruelly, terribly, to have my kindly im- 
pulses ‘'nipped in the bud” or misinterpreted. 

On one well-remembered occasion, it was the washer- 


24 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


woman who got me into trouble. She was in the bath- 
room counting out the clothes, and I was there helping, in 
that hindering fashion common to children. 

Mammy Rachel wasn’t in a very good humor that day, 
because the “wash” was rather larger than usual. In my 
eagerness to help, I kept running about over the clothes, 
leaving many additional soiled spots the size of my little 
dusty feet. Mammy Rachel kept on grumbling about “dis 
’ere pile er clo’s,” until finally I said, “Well, never 
mind. Mammy Rachel, I’ll help you wash ’em,” for I had 
great faith in my ability to do any kind of work that I 
wanted to do. And it hurt my self-esteem, and angered me, 
when Mammy Rachel replied gruffly, “Go ’long, chil’, wid 
yer nornsense; yer doan know nuffin’ erbout washin’, an’ 
yers hindern moan yer heppin’. Jes look a’ dem obstra- 
cious foots (goodness knows where she found the word “ob- 
stracious” !) ; dey’s er s’ilin’ dese yere duds moan dey already 
is, an’ I jes’ wan’s yer to get outen heah an’ lemme ’lone.” 

With that ungrateful speech as a return for my generous 
offer, my kindly impulse died, and hot, passionate anger 
sprung Phoenix-like from its ashes. 

“Ain’t you ashamed of yourself, you mean, ugly thing, 
to talk to me like that?” I cried, angrily. 

“Now, lemme tell yer, little sass-box, if yer doan qui’ 
dat trompin’ on dese yere clo’s an’ er sassin’ uv me, I gwine 
ri’ straight an’ tell yer maw.” 

“Go tell her if you want to — now — now — now — and 
now!” I cried, dancing “The Fisher’s Hornpipe” all over 
the clothes, and ending right in the middle of the pile. 

“I ’clar ter gracious, I dunno what yer maw gwine eber 
do wid you, for you sho’ is one little spit-fire. I does hope 
I neber will see sech anoder ’twix dis an’ jedgmen’ day. 
I ain’ neber gwine fergit yer sass ’twell Gabrul blow his 
horen.” 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


25 


“Hush up, you old black nigger, or I will tell mother 
how I saw you trying to steal her wine this morning 1” I 
cried, with eyes blazing. 

“Now, honey,” in a wheedling tone, “doan yer dast tell 
yer maw dat, for sho’s yer duz, de ol hoo-doo man he gwine 
grab yer, sum er dese dawk nights, an’ jek yer ri’ spank up 
froo’ do ceilin’. Gawd knows yer dun dremp it, anyhow, 
chile, kase yer ain’ neber seed me er stealin’ nuffin. W’y, 
me! Ketch me er stealin’. I wouldn’ take nuffin’ whut 
didn’ b’lon’ ter me. ’Sides, yer maw neber do perjek ter 
me habin’ er little drap er sperits.” 

“Now run erlon’, honey, an’ lemme gitter wuk, an’ den 
when I’se froo wid dese clo’s I gwine tell yer de purties’ 
story you eber hearn, ’bout ‘Brer’ Rabbit an’ Brer’ Fox.’ ” 

Her kind words dispelled my anger as quickly as it had 
come, and I left. Three minutes later I was perched in 
the topmost branch of a tall pecan tree, swaying back and 
forth, singing to the top of my young voice : 

“Rock-a-by, baby, in a treetop. 

When the wind blows the cradle will rock.” 

A neighbor who saw me told mother she stood many 
times and watched me, with her “heart in her throat,” 
expecting every minute to see me fall, but that I clung to 
the tree like a little “woodpecker” and reminded her of 
one, with my bright red sunbonnet gleaming through the 
green leaves. 

That same sunbonnet had to be tied on securely to make 
me wear it; to accomplish this mother had cut a hole in 
the top, pulled through it a large wisp of hair and knotted 
it on the outside in such a manner that I could not well 
get my bonnet off without first scalping myself. 

Another display of my ugly temper occurred a few days 
after. I slipped off from home and went to see a dear 


26 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


old lady of whom I was very fond, because she gave me 
“lots of goodies’^ to eat and let me talk to her “Polly.” I 
was in a great hurry to “get off” while mother was absent, 
so I did not stop to “dress up,” but went in my little soiled 
slip and torn shoes. It happened, as it generally does, that 
because I was not “dressed” Aunt Alice, as I called her, 
though she was not related to me, had company — a very 
rich young lady who was counted among the aristocracy 
of the country. Her father had been an Irish laborer, who 
had acquired his wealth suddenly — I do not remember 
how — and it is of no importance. 

The young lady gave me a regular “stony British stare,” 
curled her lips scornfully, elevated her rather large nose 
and said to Aunt Alice: “Just look at that child’s shoes, 
how ragged they are! Nice people wouldn’t let their 
children dress so.” 

“I don’t care if they are ragged,” I retorted, angrily. 
“I have better ones at home, and I’m nicer than you are, in 
my ragged shoes, for I wouldn’t make a rude speech like 
that of any little girl. You think you are aristocracy, but 
you are only codfish aristocracy.” (I had heard a lady say 
that about her, but I didn’t know what it meant.) And then 
I flung out of the room, my eyes fairly emitting sparks. 
At the door I ran plump into the arms of Aunt AJice’s 
son, who was just coming in to bring his mother the first 
goldenrod of the season — a flower which was a great fa- 
vorite with Aunt Alice. As I ran against him he closed his 
arms around me, and looking down into my flushed, angry 
face, with his kind, calm, laughing blue eyes, he said: 
“Where away so fast, my little maid?” 

“Oh, Uncle Ben, let me go!” I gasped. “Let me go— 
the bad, hateful woman — I don’t want to see her any more.” 

“Little girl,” he said gently, taking my little hand in his 
large, strong, white hand and walking with me to the gate. 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


27 


That was all he said, but the calmness of his voice and his 
touch quieted me at once. At the gate he said: “Good- 
by; always be a good girl and kind to everybody. Plant 
seeds of kindness, and you will reap a harvest of love.” A 
few days after that he left home for some fine school in 
the north; then his mother moved away, and I saw him no 
more for many years, but he was always “Uncle Ben” to 
me. I thought, because I called his mother Aunt Alice, I 
ought to call him Uncle Ben; and they humored my child- 
ish ignorance. 

I was very dark ; that was another of my childish troubles., 
for I wanted to be white', like a lily, with rosy cheeks. Some 
people said I had an olive complexion. I never said any- 
thing about it, but I always had a great contempt for their 
ignorance, for “my complexion certainly was not the color 
of the olives we ate.” 

One day as I was playing in our front yard, two ladies 
passed along the sidewalk, and one of them — a stranger to 
me — said to the other: “Heavens! whose little girl is that? 
She looks like a darkie.” 

Thus I was constantly having my “feelings hurt.” If 
it wasn't my badness it was my complexion (as if I could 
help that) or my temper, or something else — and so “Life” 
was always bitter — to me. “Grown-up” people do not 
realize how their cruel speeches hurt a child’s heart, else 
they could never make them. 


CHAPTER V. 


‘‘A sweet new blossom of Humanity fresh fallen 
from God’s own home to flower on earth.” 

Again the angels visited our home, and this time they 
left us a little blue-eyed, fair-haired brother, and father’s 
cup of joy was full and running over. 

I can give no explicit information concerning the mode 
of traveling chosen by the angels on this last visit — whether 
by steamboat or railway, or neither; but it seems to me 
(if I remember aright) that the old lady who was visiting 
mother at the time told us she found the baby in the gar- 
den among the rose bushes, where the angels had left it 
for her. I remember very well that my little sister, with a 
chum of hers, went into the garden to hunt for a baby for 
themselves. Somebody found them while they were en- 
gaged demolishing the big white-head cabbages — they had 
already searched the rose bushes (without success, it is 
needless to say). Upon being asked, “What in the world 
are you doing, you naughty children?” they replied: “We 
isn’t naughty — we’s dess er lookin’ fer anuzzer baby.” 

It was the shadowing forth of that beautiful maternal 
love, which seems to be the gift of Nature to every daughter 
of Eve. A woman who is devoid of that gift is not a 
natural woman. (I wonder why it is that nobody ever 
heard of boy children hunting for babies.) 

Well, at last father had a real, sure-enough boy, and now 
I was “nobody’s darling.” Nobody cared for me, and I 
was a most miserable little wretch; and thus it was I was 
forced to feel, in the tenderest years of intelligent child- 

28 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


29 


hood, that I stood alone, utterly alone — that the world had 
no place for me; and I used to wish that I could die; some- 
times I would determine to starve myself to death; then 
I would shut myself up in my room and refuse to go down 
to dinner. As the sounds of pleasant laughter and cheerful 
talk floated up to me I would whisper to myself: “You 
don’t care for me now, but you will feel sorry when you 
find me dead.” And then my little heart would sadden 
with self-pity, and after a storm of tears I would begin to 
realize that starving was very slow and very painful; and 
before supper time I would creep downstairs to the dining- 
room, and, like a wee brown mousie, begin to search for 
something to eat. Nobody said anything to me, or no- 
ticed me in any way. I was supposed to be “in a fit of 
sulks,” and it was considered best to let me “sulk it out.” 
No greater mistake could have been made, for a kind word 
or a tender caress would have dispelled the cloud as “sun- 
light drinketh dew.” As it was, I was left to brood over 
my little griefs until I became more and more morbid every 
day. No doubt, if father had not been so completely ab- 
sorbed in his wonderful boy, he would have observed my 
growing unhappiness and the unhealthy condition of my 
mind, and have taken some measures to avert so great a 
misfortune as that of allowing his child to grow up in 
such an unhappy atmosphere. But father was so supremely 
happy in the possession of a boy — at last — that he viewed 
all the rest of the world through his own roseate-colored 
glasses. Never before, in all the annals of time, was there 
such a wonderful baby ! 

But speaking of glasses reminds me that once, and once 
only, father was unjust to me. It was one beautiful, 
bright afternoon and a number of little friends were with 
us; we were all out under “the big mulberry” tree playing 
.“ladies” and having a good time. Father was sitting on 


30 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


his store gallery, just across the street from our home, con - 
versing with one of his old war-time comrades. Presently 
he called to me and told me to bring him his glasses. I 
was very reluctant to leave my little friends and my play, 
but I knew when father called there was nothing to do but 
to obey his summons, and it was always my disposition, if 
I had anything to do, to do it and be done with it; so I ran 
as fast as I could to the house, caught up the glasses and 
sped away. Now, our dwelling stood upon a beautiful 
terrace and the path led down to a gate which opened out 
on quite a considerable incline. Just at one side of the 
gate was the big mulberry tree, which had thrown out an 
enormous root across this “incline.” The hard rains and 
constant wear of many feet had left this root entirely un- 
covered, and there it lay, a stumbling-block to all unwary 
little feet. Well, I stumped my foot against that fatal root, 
fell down, and — but I am anticipating. I jumped up, 
and in my eager haste to get back to play I never once 
thought of any possible or probable damage to the glasses. 
When I stood before father and opened my chubby little 
fist, picture my surprise and chagrin when I disclosed to 
his view his costly, gold rimmed glasses “smashed into 
smithereens.” 

He gave me one cold, stern glance that froze the blood 
in my veins, and said: “Fll whip you for this when I 
come home tonight.” In thousands of instances such a 
threat would have fallen on unheeding ears, for many chil- 
dren are so accustomed to hearing threats which are never 
fulfilled that they finally cease to care for them. But I 
knew that my father’s fiat was as unchangeable as the law 
of the Medes and Persians. 

Can any one (who is not a little child and acquainted with 
corporal punishment) sympathize with me, and realize what 
agony was mine? Ah, well! the laughter died on my lips, . 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


31 


the light died in my eyes, the beautiful, sunshiny day had 
lost all its brightness for me. I crept slowly back to the 
house, hid myself away in my little, desolate room, through 
whose open window floated the happy laughter of gay, 
light-hearted children. Oh, the mockery of it! 

How could those children laugh and be gay when such 
a cruel doom hung over one unhappy little victim? I hid 
my head under the pillow and tried to shut out the sounds. 

Night came; father called me to him and gave me the 
worst whipping he ever gave me in all my little life — gave 
me a whipping with a sharp, keen switch, “to teach me to be 
more careful.” Methinks I feel the quivering of my flesh 
even now, under those unmerited strokes. I have never 
harbored any reproachful feelings against my dear father; 
he meant well, but he made the same mistake that thou- 
sands of parents have made, and will continue to make as 
long as there is a peopled world. 

I have often wondered “if parents think it right to mete 
out such severe punishment for a little ‘carelessness,’ what 
would they consider a just punishment for the greater 
crimes of disobedience, lying and stealing.” 

Yes, father was unjust to me once, and it has defaced the 
otherwise beautiful page devoted to his memory. 

Parents should be very careful and try to remember that 
they are just as careless in their duties to their heavenly 
parent as children are to their earthly parents. Does God 
punish them for every little misdemeanor? 


CHAPTER VI. 


“A wonderful stream is the River Time, 

As it runs through the realms of tears, 

With a faultless rhythm, and a musical rhyme, 

And a broader sweep, and a surge sublime. 

As it blends with the ocean of years.” 

Time, with all his wonderful and mighty power, has 
never been able to blot out the memory of the awful grief 
that came into my life when I was but nine years old. 

Father’s health had been very bad ever since his return 
from that dreadful war between the “Blue and the Gray.” 

At last the doctors advised him to take a trip to Sara- 
toga Springs as a last and only hope. The day he left us 
I was so near the valley of the shadow of death that he 
thought, when he kissed me good-bye, he would find on 
his return only a mound of earth and a marble slab to 
mark the narrow home of his unhappy little girl. But 
I am here yet, and he is at rest. 

After an absence of a few weeks, father returned home, 
and I remember how his kind blue eyes filled with tears 
when he took me up in his arms and pressed my pale, wan 
face against his breast. He was glad to find his little girl 
alive. How many times since I have wished that I might 
have died then, while I was an innocent little child. 

Father’s health seemed better for a short time, and then 
he grew worse again. One night mother came to us, her 
quivering face all bathed in tears, and told us to “Come 
quickly. Your dear papa is dying.” When we reached his 
bedside he was too far gone to know aught of earthly 


32 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


33 


things; we saw him pass quietly away, with a smile on 
his lips. Truly he approached his grave 

“Like one that wraps the drapery of his couch 
About him and lies down to pleasant dreams.'’ 

When they told me, “Your father is dead,” I could not 
believe it. “Can this be death?” I cried to my heart. 
“Why, there is nothing dreadful here.” For months and 
months I believed (in my childish ignorance) that my father 
had been buried alive; and night after night I dreamed of 
him walking into mother’s room; but he never seemed to 
see or know me, even when I stood before him, and that 
was always a source of grief to me. 

As he lay in his coffin, some one took me by the hand and 
led me up to him to kiss him a last farewell. There were 
no more “good-byes” for him and me. As I looked for the 
last time on that white, dead face, I threw myself on my 
knees and prayed that God would let me die and go with 
my dear father. But as some writer has truly said, “Man’s 
agony does not avert man’s doom,” and it was my doom to 
live and suffer. 

When the clods of earth began to fall with that horrible, 
dull, heavy thud, I screamed and buried my face in the 
folds of a woman’s dress; she put her arms around me and 
kept me from falling. O God ! is there any sound, on earth, 
more sickening, more heart-rending, than that dreadful 
sound of clods falling on the coffin of the loved dead? 

But there is no need to picture the agony that wrung my 
child-heart. If grown up people forget their childhood so 
far as to think that children are incapable of poignant grief, 
they are greatly mistaken. No human heart could have 
borne greater pain than mine — and lived. 

When it was all over and we were back in our desolate 
home, how dreary life seemed! Mother sat in her room, 

3 


a4 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


looking down at the little fatherless babe on her lap. As I 
looked into her agonized, tear-stained face, my own little, 
bleeding heart went out to her, and I longed to put my arms 
around her and tell her that I would love her, and try to 
comfort her; but I remembered how stern and cold my 
mother had always seemed, and I was afraid I would be 
repulsed — and so another “instinct of affection” was 
checked. 


CHAPTER VIL 


“Time, the foe of man’s dominion, 

Wheels around in ceaseless flight, 

Scattering from his hoary pinion 
Shades of everlasting night. 

Still, beneath his frown appalling, 

Man and all his. works decay; 

Still, before him, swiftly falling, 

Kings and kingdoms pass away.” 

When father died my childhood’s king passed away. 
After the first keen edge of grief had mercifully worn off, 
I turned to my little brother with that infallible longing of 
the human heart for something to love. The dear little fel- 
low became my special pride and delight. I made his first 
suit of boy-clothes. Mother had gone somewhere (to New 
Orleans, I think), and I determined to work wonders in her 
absence. So I purchased some linen, took it to a seam- 
stress, had it cut and fitted, then I took it home and made it, 
sewing into the stitches many thoughts of love for the 
precious child, and not a few drops of my own blood, drawn 
forth by the sharp, cruel little needle. 

When mother returned, after an absence of four days, I 
marched out in triumph with my darling manikin, prouder 
than Caeser ever was when he conquered nations, for I had 
never been taught to sew, and I thought I had done some- 
thing very “smart,” and would receive the much-desired 
reward of praise. But somebody laughed at my sewing, 
and facetiously remarked: “It is a great wonder the little fel- 
low don’t catch his toe in the stitches and fall down;” and 

35 


36 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


then I flew to my room, crestfallen, indignant, and almost 
heartbroken. 

Years have come and gone since my dear father 
went to meet his God. Often as I sit alone, musing 
over the mysteries of life and death, of heaven, and hell, of 
sinner and saint, the thought comes to me: “Is father in the 
mansions of the blessed?” He was not a member of any 
church and had never been baptized, but he was good and 
kind and honest and never injured any one. 

These thoughts trouble me sometimes, and once I asked 
a preacher if he thought a man or woman who was kind 
and charitable, upright and honest, and who always tried 
to live up to the golden rule, but who had never openly 
professed Christ by joining one of his churches, would 
receive as great punishment when judged of God as the 
man or woman who had committed murder, theft, idolatry, 
adultery; who had swindled orphans and widows and been 
guilty of other heinous crimes; and that preacher said: 
“Yes, there are no degrees in hell.” 

I did not believe him then, and I do not believe him 
now, but it is all a great mystery to me, and I never will 
be able to understand. We are taught that salvation is 
free, and that it is an easy thing; that heaven is large 
enough to hold all mankind, and that God is willing and 
anxious to save the children He has made. But His com- 
mandments are certainly not easy to keep, and the Bible 
tells us, “Straight is the gate and narrow is the way which 
leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.” I cannot 
understand, but I know that our children sin terribly 
against us, yet we could not be hard-hearted enough to 
doom them to a never-ending, nameless torture; and I 
cannot — I will not — believe that the Heavenly Father is 
less merciful than His wicked, sinful children. 


CHAPTER VIIl 


“A still, small voice spake unto me: 

‘Thou art so full of misery, 

Were it not better not to be?’ 

“Then to the still, small voice I said: 

‘Let me not cast in endless shade 
What is so wonderfully made.’ ” 

Father had been dead only a few years when (as is the 
way with widows) mother took unto herself another hus- 
band. Then came the dark, dark days for me. 

The years that passed between father’s death and moth- 
er’s second marriage seem to have left but little impression 
on my mind. I only know that I went to day school, like 
other children; that I got into “squabbles,” from which I 
generally emerged victorious and with flying colors; that 
I usually missed my lessons, which were always dull and 
too difficult; that I hated my teacher in school and loved 
her out of school; that I always managed to escape her 
switch, which she was wont to use freely upon delinquent 
pupils ; that I was stanch in my little friendships, never per- 
mitting any one to say aught that was detrimental to a 
friend; that I invariably espoused the cause of the weaker 
side — right or wrong — thereby getting myself into many 
a dilemma — and last, but worst of all, I ruined, utterly 
ruined, my mind, and laid the foundation of untold future 
misery, by reading love stories of the highly sensational 
order. The nqyels of Mrs. Southworth, and Bertha M. 
Clay, and Miss M. E. Braddon, were devoured with avidity, 

37 


38 


LIFE-AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


and I grew more restless and unhappy, more dissatisfied 
with life, more romantic and sentimental. 

But when the fatal day came, and mother placed over her 
fatherless children a brutal tyrant, more cruel in his little 
way than the heartless Nero of ancient times, our house 
was “a house divided against itself.” 

When I saw that the new husband had come into our 
lives with the determination “to rule over those spoiled 
children” with a high hand, all my rebellious nature rose 
in arms, and I refused to recognize him as a father, or to 
submit to his petty tyranny. 

If he had treated me with love and kindness I would have 
lavished on him all the long-repressed, pent-up affection 
of my little life, for my heart was hungry for love. 

But he was mean and cruel, as too many stepfathers are, 
and he thwarted us in every way his small ingenuity could 
devise. If we wanted the carriage for an afternoon drive 
the horses were “too tired,” or the driver was “too busy,” 
or the roads were “too muddy”; if we wanted to go to a 
party, or a picnic, we were denied permission, etc., etc., 
indefinitely. I bore all of his indignities with what pa- 
tience I could until one day the crisis came. 

I was standing in my room, near the half opened win- 
dow, when I heard a harsh voice say: “Get out of here, 
you little scoundrel, or I’ll whip you within an inch of your 
life.” “I will just see if it is my dog the brute is speaking 
to like that,” I said to myself, glancing through my win- 
dow. What was my surprise and horror to find that he 
was using such language to my own darling little brother. 
When my shocked brain finally mastered the full meaning 
of the situation, my blood fairly boiled; it was no longer 
blood— it was fire in my veins. 

I flew into mother’s room like a whirlwind. My eyes — 
which when not animated were soft and dreamy — were 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


39 


blazing and snapping like those of an enraged tigress. 

It has always been my disposition to fight to the death 
for those I love. 

My mother’s husband came into her room while I was 
telling mother what I saw — and then there was a scene! 
He called me ‘battler” and other ugly names and said if 
I didn’t quit running to mother with tales he would “slap 
the devil” out of me. (I beg pardon of his satanic majesty, 
but I am only repeating the exact words.) I answered 
him, taunt for taunt, and walking straight up to him — so 
close that I could not have taken another step without 
walking through him — I looked up boldly into his face with 
that large, fearless gaze of mine (which so many people 
misinterpret) and hissed through my clinched teeth: “Now, 
slap me, if you dare!” 

And he didn’t dare. 

Poor mother stood near and kept commanding me to 
“hush! hush, Hilda!” but for once in my life I was too 
angry to heed her stern commands. 

I do not remember just how the fray culminated, but I felt 
as if I had come of¥ victor. However, I was, ever 
after that quarrel, the object of that man’s undying 
hatred, and he made my life such a curse to me that my 
mind begun to dwell long and deeply upon the idea of self- 
destruction. “Shall I kill myself and end it all?” 

Finally, mother decided to send me to boarding school. 
I was delighted with anything which offered a rescue from 
my unhappy life at home. Mother filled a big trunk with 
nice clothing, et cetera, and launched me forth. I was ter- 
ribly homesick at first. And it is my belief that homesick- 
ness is just as dreadful (in its way) as seasickness, for in both 
instances the victim thinks it would be sweet to die. 

But I fell in love with one of the girls, and she and I were 
inseparable, spending our time, out of school hours, walking 


40 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


arm in arm among the flowers or sitting in one of the pretty 
summer-houses. 

In school we wrote notes to each other, telling each other 
over and over of our deathless love. (My love for her was 
deathless, for I love her yet, though fate separated us at the 
end of that school term, and we have met but seldom since.) 

It is needless to say I incurred no risk of ruining my 
health from “over study.” 

Mother had had many misgivings about sending me “off 
to school” at such a tender age (I was about thirteen), but 
something had to be done to prevent hostilities between her 
husband and me becoming dangerous, so she selected one 
that was a sort of home school, originally established by the 
president and his wife for the benefit of their own children, 
who were “legion.” 

The school was situated in a most isolated country, six 
or eight miles from any town, on a typical Southern plan- 
tation. Of course there were no near neighbors except the 
“darkies” in the “quarter.” 

The family was one of broken-down wealth and aris- 
tocracy (the war left many such), and educating the younger 
children at home was the only chance of saving them from 
that ignorance which is intolerable to educated parents, and 
thus the school, started for the benefit of their own children, 
had developed into a boarding-school, liberally patronized 
at first, but gradually dying out for want of proper manage- 
ment. 

The faculty consisted of Mr. Williams and his oldest 
daughter, a dainty, refined, pretty woman. The two were 
assisted sometimes by Mrs. Williams (she was something of 
an invalid), who was a hard, cold, stern woman, feared and 
disliked by the whole school. 

There were about twenty boarders — and ten children in 
the family. Never will I forget my experience in that 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


41 


school! We were not required to keep “study hour” under 
the espionage of a teacher, but were permitted to study 
in our own rooms. Of course we didn’t do much study- 
ing — at least, the most of us did not; but, then, how could 
we be expected to study when we were so hungry all the 
time we could do little else except think of somthing to eat? 
Our meals consisted of hard, tough biscuits, fried pickled 
pork, mush and syrup. At home we did not confine our 
lowest servants to such food. I came so near starving that 
I grew reckless and sold nearly everything I had for some- 
thing to eat. My wardrobe became so depleted that mother 
had to go to work, and have a new outfit made and sent 
to me. When those new clothes reached me I had become 
so attenuated that they hung from me like the rags from 
a “scare-crow” (they had been made by the pattern that 
• fitted my plump little person when I left home); they 
were big enough for “two of me,” but I put them on and 
wore them with great bravado, never allowing an oppor- 
tunity to escape of explaining to Mr. Williams’ children 
that it was “the effect of starvation.” (I knew they would 
“tell it,” and I wanted them to do so) Mr. Williams was 
highly incensed when he heard what I said, and swore I 
had grown thin from “lacing.” 

“Lacing, indeed!” and now it was my turn to be infuri- 
ated — but what could I do? 

I remember well, that I sold a beautiful, “brand-new” 
eight-dollar dress for one chicken, and a nice ging- 
ham for a quart of milk, and so on through the whole list, 
until there was very little of the “list” left. 

The funny part about it was that the chicken was fried 
without salt, and evidently without grease, and brought to 
us (slipped in) by the negro girl who sold it, in an old tin 
wash-basin; and we ate that chicken. I say “we,” because, 
of course, whenever I bought anything I treated my room- 


42 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


mates — three of them. We four hid in a dark closet (for 
we were disobeying orders) and ate that wretched chicken 
without a morsel of bread. Funny? Well, rather — if it 
were not so pathetic. Oh! how I longed to return home — 
to the “flesh-pots of Egypt!” What was the bondage of a 
tyrannical stepfather in comparison with starvation? 

At last vacation came and we returned to our several 
homes, glad to escape from our ten months’ prison and 
prison fare. 

The pleasure of getting home again was short-lived, for 
I was soon into mischief and trouble. 

All little children have what they call sweethearts. From 
the time I was ten years old Robert Conway and I had been 
“sweethearts,” and shortly after my return home we took 
it upon ourselves to become “engaged,” or what was the 
next thing to it. I wore his ring (but mother didn’t know 
it) and we promised to love each other forever. Finally 
mother got an inkling of what was going on, and deter- 
mined to nip our young affections in the bud, for. Robert’s 
parents had lost their wealth and died, leaving Robert no 
inheritance but the sad, pitiful disease, consumption. 
Mother was fearfully distressed lest I should marry Robert, 
and to separate us decided to send me back to Mr. Wil- 
liams’ school; but when she informed me of her decision 
I looked into her face, and with a courage born of des- 
peration I said: “Mother, just so sure as you send me 
back to that dreadful place I will run away or do something 
else equally as desperate.” 

I saw mother look into my eyes as if startled by the ex- 
pression she saw there, and she never said any more to me 
about sending me back to Mr. Williams. But I never 
could feel sure of what Fate had in store for me, and so I 
lived in constant terror. At one time the danger of being 
sent back seemed so imminent to me that I made all my 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


43 


preparations for “decamping.” I made up a few necessary 
articles of clothing into a neat little bundle, hid it in a 
secret place, provided myself with two or three cold bis- 
cuits, with which to pacify the dog, as I had read of other 
“runaways” doing, and waited for the darkness of the night. 

I do not remember what happened to keep me from 
“running away.” But Robert soon saw that mother was 
making my life unbearably miserable with her persecutions, 
and decided he would go away and seek his fortune among 
strangers; and then, when he had a nice home for me, and 
I was old enough, he would come back for me. 

We kissed farewell and parted. In a few short months 
he fell a prey to the dread disease — consumption. 

For awhile I grieved bitterly; hour after hour I would 
brood over that same old haunting question: “Were it not 
better not to be?” But I was very young — scarce fifteen 
when he died. 


CHAPTER IX. 


’“Slowly, slowly, slowly the days succeeded each other — 
days and weeks and months.’’ 

Time crept by on leaden feet and I grew more restless 
and more unhappy. A nameless unrest took full posses- 
sion of my being. Mother had decided to keep me at 
home for one year — a most unwise decision — and I had 
no duties, no active work with which to fill up the count- 
less hours. I became more and more devoted to novel 
reading, vainly hoping to forget my own sorrows in the 
contemplation of the many woes of unhappy heroines. 

One day as I lay hidden behind some potted ferns, draper- 
ies and “what not,” such as women delight in decorating 
their rooms with, deeply engrossed in the mysteries of some 
poisonous sensational novel, two people entered the room. 
I scarcely noticed their entrance and paid no attention to 
the conversation until I heard my own name mentioned. 

“I am deeply distressed about Hilda,” mother was say- 
ing. (“I wonder what Hilda has been doing now,” I 
mused, and waited to discover what it was that was dis- 
tressing mother so. I suppose I ought to have apprised 
them of my presence, but I didn’t.) 

“In what way does Hilda distress you?” asked a grave, 
kind voice, which I recognized as that of our old, gray- 
haired minister. 

“Oh, she is so wilful, so rebellious, so different from my 
other children, and she seems so restless, so dissatisfied and 
unhappy — I don’t know what to do with her.” 

“It is a serious thing, this raising of girls, especially girls 
44 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


45 


with a nature like Hilda’s; she is one of those high-strung*, 
passionate creatures who have in them the making of no- 
ble women, if the current of their lives is allowed to flow 
in the proper channel; but if by some unfortunate circum- 
stance that current is turned aside and forced into other 
channels — ah, then — God pity such women. Hilda has 
more of good than evil in her nature, but you know, Mrs. 
Beverly, it is always necessary to cultivate the ‘good’ and 
root up the evil. Be very, very careful how you mold her 
character; so much depends on early training!” 

“But what am I to do?” asked poor mother, in that 
plaintive tone so often adopted by women when brought 
face to face with a problem they cannot solve. 

“I am sure I do the very best thing for her that my judg- 
ment dictates. Of course she is too old to whip now, but 
no one can say I ever ‘spared the rod’ with my children 
when they were small. Sometimes I threaten to whip her, 
but such a dreadful look comes into those large, sullen eyes 
of hers that it really frightens me. I verily believe, if I 
were to administer corporal punishment to her now, she 
v/ould kill herself to punish me ; of course, I would not have 
her know what I think, for anything in the world, but 
there are times when Hilda’s eyes have a positively murder- 
ous look in their fathomless depths.” 

“I think, Mrs. Beverly, you do not quite understand 
Hilda. I have often observed her ways, and she strikes 
me as being altogether different from any child I know; 
yet even in her greatest tantrums I have noticed that a 
few kind words will calm her instantly — like ‘pouring oil 
on troubled waters;’ and her eyes are very beautiful, but 
they change so often one can never form any settled opin- 
ion about them; yet that is not a bad trait, for it betokens 
intellect, intelligence — a ‘genius in embryo,’ perhaps. 

(I didn’t know what “in embryo” meant, but I deter- 


46 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


mined I would look in the encyclopedia and enlighten my- 
self.) 

“Oh, I know she is smart enough in her books, but I 
don’t like that way her eyes have of flashing and blazing 
until they seem to be darting sparks of fire,” mother re- 
plied. 

“Well, who would prefer a child with a stolid, dead-set 
expression of eye and countenance? I tell you, Mrs. Bev- 
erly, to me it is an intensely interesting study — the play 
of Hilda’s countenance when she is unconscious of being 
observed. In repose, her whole face looks dreamy; some 
might call it a little sullen, but I think it is only a ten- 
dency to melancholy which will develop to an alarming 
degree unless her ‘lines fall in pleasant places;’ should she 
be fortunate enough to have her life surrounded by love and 
tenderness, she will undoubtedly grow into a lovely, lov- 
able woman, I have seen that dreamy face of hers light 
up and sparkle and beam with a look that was simply 
grand — a look that bespoke a soul of sublime possibilities. 
And if you give her the advantages of the ‘higher educa- 
tion’ she will make her mark in the world, depend on it.” 

“But she is so disobedient and impudent to her step- 
father; they are always at daggers’ points with each other; 
sometimes I can scarcely refrain from punishing her se- 
verely.” 

“Perhaps, Mrs. Beverly, you draw the reins a little too 
tightly; it is a great mistake to hold too tight a rein on a 
mettlesome animal.” 

“I am not a meddlesome animal,” I cried, springing up 
before their astonished eyes — all my indignation aroused 
by such an unjust criticism, and the fact that I was being 
talked over like a horse, with his good and bad points. 

“Leave the room this instant,” said mother, in cold, 
stern, commanding tones, while her face turned first red 
with shame for such a child, then grew livid with suppressed 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


47 


passion, that I should dare exhibit such temper and con- 
duct in her presence, and the presence of a guest. 

As I turned to obey her the dear old minister laid his 
hand kindly on my head and said, gently: “My child, you 
misunderstood me; I did not call you meddlesome, but 
mettlesome, which means full of life — full of spirit.’' 

“Oh, please forgive me!” I cried, instantly subdued by 
his kind words and manner. “I am very, very sorry I was 
so rude, but all my life people have been saying cruel 
things of me. I know I am a bad, wicked girl — but I wish 
I could be good, oh! indeed, indeed I do wish I could be 
good; I try to be good and I can’t — I just can’t!” and the 
big tears welled up and overflowed, but were quickly dried 
by the hot fire of anger, when mother repeated in harsh, 
unrelenting accents : “Go.” And I went. 

I remember as vividly as if it were yesterday that I 
rushed to my room, threw myself face downward on the 
bed (a favorite attitude of mine when tortured by any 
strong emotion) and writhed under a sense of my “wrongs,” 
revolving in my mind the old, sad question: “Shall I kill 
myself?” 

How easy it would be to end it all — to plunge the big 
knife through my temples. Then I would get up, go to 
the dining room, take up the great knife (that was, at one 
and the same time, my fascination and terror), look at it 
long and intently, count any little ‘‘gaps” that happened to 
be on its sharp edge, imagine how it would feel as it parted 
the fibres of my flesh, shudder from head to foot as I 
thought of the possible “future beyond the grave,” lay it 
down softly and rush away as if I thought it would run after 
me and claim me as its victim. “Oh! I dared not kill my- 
self!” “Was I a coward? Was I afraid of God — in an ab- 
stract way — or was it, as Carlyle’s old Diogenes said, 
“From suicide a certain afterthought of Christianity with- 
held me?” 


CHAPTER X. 


“The bell strikes one. We take no note of time 
But from its loss; to give it then a tongue 
Is wise in man.” 

As time passed on, and I grew more restless and un- 
happy, I assumed an air of reckless gayety, chatting and 
laughing in the most light-hearted manner, until all who 
met me thought me the happiest girl in the world. People 
called me “bright,” “witty,” “entertaining.” 

I always made it a point to furnish amusement suitable to 
whatever crowd I happened to be in, and at last one day I 
learned just such a lesson as every “smart Aleck” deserves 
to learn. (Who has not seen young people who think it 
smart to ridicule those who are “old-fashioned?) 

It was one Sunday. I was spending the afternoon with 
a lady who lived near the river where the steamboats landed . 
Several young people were there to watch the passengers 
disembark. All of us stood at the windows, peeping 
through the slats of the blinds and criticising all who 
passed. Directly a queer group came within range of 
our bright eyes that was “just the thing” to furnish sport 
for thoughtless, frivolous girls. 

There was a little, oldish woman, who looked as though 
she might have belonged to a generation long since dead; 
her dress was. of a style which had been worn so many years 
back that none of us remembered ever having seen it. 
Around her shoulders was an old, faded shawl, and on her 
head a bonnet shaped like a coal scuttle. By the side of 
the little, oldish woman, walked a little old man, looking 

48 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


49 


equally as old-fashioned and dowdy, and bringing up the 
rear was a boy about ten years old, sauntering along in the 
most indifferent, independent manner, with his hands 
rammed down into the pockets of his home-made, ill-fitting 
trousers — his hat jammed on the back of his head, and his 
lips pursed into a merry whistle. 

“Just look, girls!” I cried, and the whole bevy came 
trooping over to my side, laughing and giggling (as girls 
have a silly way of doing) at each of my witty (?) remarks. 

None of us were really mean-hearted, but we were self- 
ishly thoughtless, and selfishness in one of the very mean- 
est sins. 

Imagine my consternation, on reaching home, to find 
the “group” calmly seated in the parlor, and to be intro- 
duced to mother’s own sister, brother-in-law and nephew. 

Oh ! I could have sunk through the floor for very 
shame. Mother’s sister! and I had been making all 
manner of fun and attracting the attention of “the girls” 
to her old-fashioned attire. 

I knew that mother had a sister whom she had not seen 
“since the war,” and that she was poor, and lived “in the 
country,” but oh ! I never dreamed that my handsome, silk- 
attired mother could have such a shabby, old-fashioned, 
“tacky-looking” sister. 

Yes, she was “shabby, and old-fashioned, and tacky- 
looking,” but she had not been with us many days before I 
had learned to respect her for her kindness of heart and 
her good, common sense; to admire her for her ability in 
telling interesting stories, and to pity her for the hardness 
of her fate in being doomed to a narrow, loveless, sunless 
life. 

She had a fine voice, and in the long evenings she would 
sing to us the dear, sweet, old songs. Sometimes she 
entertained us with her stories. 


50 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


There was one story she used to tell us, which I always 
shall believe was the story of her own life. 

I will repeat it here, because I have thought of it so many 
times in these later years, and so often regretted that I did 
not profit by the lesson she tried to teach us in telling it. 

“The story I am going to tell you tonight, my dears, is 
one that was enacted in the years of long ago, before our 
dear sunny South had seen her fertile soil dyed red with 
the blood of friends and foes. 

It was just such a night as this — calm, with the calmness 
of early summer — a glorious night in June' — the balmy air 
fragrant with the heavy perfume of countless roses. 

In one of the stateliest of old ante-bellum homes, a lovely 
maiden stood between her long mirrors, surveying with 
critical eyes her regal beauty, adorned in magnificent bridal 
robes. Surrounding her was a host of admiring friends. 
At a little distance, stood the girl’s black “mammy,” and 
several “dusky maids,” eager to do the bidding of their 
darling “young mistiss.” (The girl’s mother was dead, and 
she was the household queen — imperious, self-willed.) On 
this, her wedding night, the grand old home was in a blaze 
of glory. The rooms were beautifully decorated with 
masses and masses of flowers, ferns, Louisiana palmetto, and 
trailing vines. The magnificent grounds were brilliantly 
lighted ; among the trees hung thousands of lanterns glitter- 
ing like “myriads of fire-flies” tangled in a net of green. 

Up the long avenue rolled strings of grand carriages 
which stopped before the marble steps to pour forth in 
streams beautiful women, in laces, silks, and jewels; and 
gallant men in “evening dress” — for all the beauty and 
chivalry for miles around had been invited to witness the 
wedding of this “fairest daughter.” 

Everything was in readiness and the hour had come. 
The guests were waiting and listening for the first strains 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


51 


of the “wedding march.” Necks were craned and eager 
eyes turned impatiently toward the closed doors. The mo- 
ments passed and little murmurs of impatience began to 
float out upon the waiting stillness — “Why the delay?” 

At last some one whispered “The bridegroom has not 
come,” and then the “whisper” passed from lip to lip. 

Finally some one else announced: “There will be no wed- 
ding tonight — it is postponed indefinitely.” Then the 
guests dispersed to their several homes, discussing all the 
probable and improbable causes, of the bridegroom’s ab- 
sence. Hours after the last guest had departed the house 
was wrapped in gloom save for a feeble light that straggled 
through the closed blinds of one sweet “virgin room.” 
Outside “The dark was blanched wan.”- 

“Overhead one green star was slipping from sight in the 
pale, void afar,” and still a beautiful, delicate woman spent 
the hours walking up and down, up and down her room, 
with hands clinched and lips compressed and eyes flashing. 
At last, wearied out, she falls face downward upon the thick, 
rich carpet, and lying there, almost smothered by folds and 
folds of billowy lace, she fights out her battle between love 
and pride. 

“The land lay in darkness, like a world in its grave,” — 
the hours dragged themselves away, and then, 

“Morn, in the white wake of the morning star. 

Came furrowing all the orient into gold.” 

And “pride” was triumphant. 

Just at the moment when the woman was tearing from her 
soft, round arms, her warm, white bosom, her midnight hair, 
the flashing jewels which were a lover’s gift to his peerless 
bride, that lover was thundering up the gravel path as fast 
as his noble steed could carry him. Leaping from his foam- 
flecked horse, he bounded up the steps, two at a time, and 


52 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


pulled the doorbell with such a quick, nervous jerk that it 
sent the echoes vibrating through the house. 

“Mammy,” who was always the “fus’ to be stirrin’,” an- 
swered the bell. When she saw who it was, her old, black, 
wrinkled face turned ashen white, she staggered back, and 
whispered hoarsely between her chattering teeth: “Is you a 
ghos’?” 

“No, mammy,” he said, “but for God’s sake, let me see 
your mistress as soon as possible. Where is she? What 
is she doing? How did she bear up under — 

“Now, looker ’ere, Marse Dabney,” said the old woman, 
recovering quickly and interrupting him, with all that free- 
dom which was often allowed to the faithful old black 
mammies of ante-bellum days, “whu’ fer yer ack so onery 
las’ night? Didn’ yer knowed it wer yer weddin’ night? 
Dat po’ chile dun nios’ cry her purty eyes outen her haid — 
an’ den yer cum ’ere dis time er day er axin’ whar she? 
and whu’ she doin’? Yer mout er knowed she war in her 
room er tryin’ ter hide erway f’um eve’ybody, kase she dat 
mortify she don’ know — an’ she ain’ doin’ nuttin,’ lessen yer 
calls it sup’n fer her to be er gougin’ her po’ leetle fingers 
inter de cyarpet an’ er cryin’ an’ er sobbin’ an’ er moanin’ 
lak ez braik yer hawt ter see.” 

“Now, mammy,” in a coaxing tone, “don’t scold any 
more, but go and tell your young mistress to let me see 
her if only for a few minutes — that I have something to 
tell her — something that will fully explain my absence.” 

“Well,” said mammy, while she stood with her portly 
figure rigidly erect, and her fat arms akimbo, “I gwine tell 
her, but I ain’ sayin’ she gwine come at yer biddin’, fur I 
tells yer ri’ now, Marse Dabney, my lit’ missy ain’ useter 
no diserpintmen’s er crossin’ uv no kin’, an’ she am dat 
proud an’ high-minded — ” and mammy made her exit 
mumbling as she went. ' 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


S3 


The young man, left to himself, tapped the rich carpet 
impatiently with his riding whip, and listened eagerly for 
his darling’s footsteps. 

But directly mammy returned, and before the young man 
could speak she said: 

“Jes’ as I thunk; missy ain’ gwine see yer; she say she 
sprised at yer imperence in axin’ ter see her arter yer 
oudacious conduc’ uv las’ night, an’ dat she don’ wan’ 
none er yer splorations an’ dat yer ain’ neber ter speak to 
her no mo’.” 

“But, mammy,” pleaded the young man, “please try to 
get her to see me; if she only knew the cause of my ab- 
sence, I am sure she would forgive me. If she will not 
come to me, give her this note,” he said, hastily writing: 

“My darling: — 

“How can you be so cruel? Why do you refuse 
to see me? You know that I did not absent myself 
last night from choice. I went hunting with a party of 
young men and we lost our way. I came straight to you as 
soon as we found the way out of that infernal forest; I 
never stopped for anything; that is why I am here at this 
early hour. Surely you will forgive me, dear, when I 
assufe you that I came to you without a moment’s delay. 
I never stopped, even to break my fast, though I had not 
tasted food for twenty-eight hours. 

“Won’t you forgive me, dearest?” 

The girl read the note, then threw it down, with a bitter 
laugh, saying, with curled lips, and in scornful tones: 

“Trust a man never to forget how many hours pass be^ 
tween his meals. Hearts may break, lives may be hope- 
lessly ruined, but a man never forgets ‘the hour of his 
dinner.’ ” 

“Here, mammy, take Mr. Dabney this note,” she said. 


54 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


“and don’t disturb me again today. I will see no one, and I 
wish to be left quite alone.” 

“Mammy” took the note in her big, horny hand, and 
then she yielded to a motherly impulse and wrapped her 
strong arms around the girl’s beautiful, graceful form, and 
said: “Bless de po’ lam’ — nobody shan’ pester her no 
mo’ dis day, dat dey shan’t.” 

(The young people of the present generation know noth- 
ing of the loA^e that existed between white children and 
their black “mammies.”) 

When the young man read the note he knew his doom 
was sealed. It said : 

“Mr. Dabney: — 

“I have only this to say to you: I will never trust my 
happiness to the keeping of a brute who cares so little for 
me that he could leave me on the eve of the wedding day to 
go ‘hunting.’ 

“A deivoted lover often makes a negligent husband — but 
a negligent lover never makes a devoted husband. 

“This is our final farewell, for I will never forgive you 
for subjecting me to the humiliation of last night, and it 
is my most earnest wish never to see your face again.” 

After the lapse of a few months the woman married 
wealth and the man married beauty: love had no place in 
either heart. 

Then came that terrible, bloody strife, and our beautiful, 
luxurious homes were ravished; our wealth vanished in 
smoke and flame. 

Poor woman! What a pitiless, dreadful fate was hers! 
Bound for all time to a man whose sole attraction had been 
his wealth — what was left to her after his wealth was gone? 
Love was not there to comfort her in her loss. Then dis- 
asters “followed fast and followed faster”; the man, raised 
in ‘gentlemanly idleness,’ as rich Southern men were 


•yj 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


55 


raised in those days, failed in every undertaking, lost hope 
and drifted into obscurity and poverty. The woman? — I 
do not know what became of her, but there is no fate on 
earth more terrible to a woman than that of being bound 
for life to a man she cannot love, while with all her heart 
and soul she loves another. 

Oh, think what an awful thing it is to be doomed to go 
through life wearing the fetters slipped on in an hour of 
girlish vanity, worldly ambition, jealousy, pique or 
wounded pride ! 

“Pride! How I hate the word! It is a spiteful demon 
and has raised barriers between thousands of loving hearts. 
Ah! I am an old woman now, but I cannot refrain from 
shuddering when I think of the misery which pride has 
brought into the world. 

“And now, my dears, take the advice of a shabby, old 
woman: Never let pride separate you from the man you 
love.” 

I wonder why it is that women will not profit by the 
experience and advice of others. As I sat and listened to 
the story I promised myself that I would never let pride 
stand between me and my happiness — and yet — 


CHAPTER XL 


“O let the solid ground not fail beneath my feet 

Before my life has found what some have found so sweet: 

Then let come what come may, what matter if I go mad, 

I shall have had my day.” 

“Let the sweet heavens endure, not close and darken above 
me 

Before I am quite sure that there is one to love me; 

Then let come what may to a life that has been so sad, 

I shall have had my day.” 

Mother decided to send me to school again, and just a 
few weeks previous to the day set for my departure the 
young men gave a ball, and there I “met my fate,” as the 
girls laughingly said, when trying to tease me. 

Warner Graham was a handsome young fellow, with all 
the polish of manner usually found among “city men”; he 
could talk well, dance beautifully, had dazzling white teeth 
and a fascinating smile. 

Ere long he declared his love for me and asked me to be 
his wife. Mother liked him and freely gave her consent. 
But to all his pleadings for a speedy marriage I answered 
“No!” telling him I was too yoilng and too ignorant — that 
I wanted to go to school a few years longer, and that I 
did not care to marry until I was nineteen. So I went to 
school a betrothed young miss, with permission from the 
principal (obtained by my mother) to correspond with my 
lover. At last some one loved me^ — but we had to part, with 
only the pleasure of letters. 

“Only the pleasure of letters,” did I say? 

56 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


57 


Ah! and what a pleasure! 

Letters! The very word calls up a long train of 
thought, and recalls to memory some lines from Ik Mar- 
vel’s famous “Reveries.” “Blessed be letters! They are the 
monitors, they are also the comforters, and they are the 
only true heart-talkers. Your speech, and their speeches 
are conventional; they are molded by circumstance,” etc. 
“But not so with letters. There you are with the soulless 
pen and the snow-white virgin paper. Your soul is measur- 
ing itself by itself, and saying its own sayings; there are no 
sneers to modify its utterance.” And all that the writer says 
is true — yet I have found from bitter experience that “let- 
ters” can separate “very friends,” for, as “there are no 
sneers to modify utterance,” neither are there any smiles 
“to modify utterance.” Many a remark that seems hard 
and cruel when it lies before us in “black and white” is 
robbed of its sting when it comes direct to us from smiling 
lips and love-lit eyes — and yet — “The glory, the freedom, 
the passion of a letter!” 

Warner and I wrote semi-weekly letters (we were not 
allowed to write oftener) sufficient in quantity (I say noth- 
ing of the quality) to fill a “Daily.” 

We exchanged numerous photographs in various sizes 
and poses. I remember getting myself into a very embar- 
rassing situation by having my “photo” taken with one of 
his “love letters” in my hand as if I were reading it. The 
picture was so distinct that the part of the letter “taken” 
could be read with perfect ease under a magnifying glass. 
I did not make the discovery until some one drew my at- 
tention to it, and then it was too late, for I had given the 
photos, and could not get them back. 

I always have believed that abominable photographer 
did something to his “old camera” on purpose to play me 
that trick. I had thought, as I sat there with that silly 


58 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


smirk on my face, that it was taking him an unusually long 
time to get ‘Things ready.” (I just expect he was reading 
that letter.) 

As time went on we supplied each other with all those 
little tokens which usually pass between young lovers, 
lie had slippers, slipper cases, embroidered silk handker- 
chiefs, dressing gowns, smoking caps and other trifles “too 
numerous to mention.” I had the conventional engage- 
ment ring (but that goes without saying), which I proudly 
wore on my left forefinger just over an ugly scar. (The 
fashion has changed since then; it is now considered very 
bad form to wear a ring on the forefinger.) Besides the 
ring I had albums — photograph and autograph — picture 
frames and trinkets galore. 

We loved each other very devotedly — or thought we did, 
which amounts to the same thing while it lasts — and each 
firmly believed that life without the other would be un- 
bearable. I tried to assure myself that at last I had found 
“What some have found so sweet.” 

But it was not long ere I learned another of life’s sad 
lessons — “Misery treads on the heels of joy — anguish rides 
swift after pleasure.” 


CHAPTER XIL 
“The saddest of all is loving.” 

In a few short weeks after I had entered school, poor 
mother died. (I have always believed she died of a broken 
heart, because of the unhappiness of her second marriage. 
Too late, she saw the great mistake she had made. She 
saw the altar of her home despoiled, her children made 
miserable, the accumulated wealth of her dead husband 
dwindling away, and herself powerless to remedy the evil 
she had brought upon them.) At the end of the term I 
was forced to leave school; I went to work to support my- 
self rather than live at home and have my soul utterly slain 
by constant contact and friction with a man of such sordid 
nature. 

My lover begged me to marry him and give him the right 
to shield me from the world and its anxieties and cares, 
but I would not consent, on the plea that I was too young 
and unfitted for the solemn duties of wife. 

Warner declared I was unlike any girl he had ever 
known; that “nine times out of ten” a girl unhappily sit- 
uated as I was would jump at the chance to secure a hus- 
band to protect her; I simply replied that I was not the 
girl to “jump at the chance of a husband;” that the man 
who won me as wife must feel that he had won a prize 
well worth the cost of winning. 

He thought me “a strange woman,” but he laughed at my 
“notions” and yielded reluctantly to my plan. I went to 
New Orleans, where a friend had secured me a situation 
as saleswoman in one of Canal’s leading emporiums, and 

59 


6o 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


Warner returned to Memphis, where he held a lucrative 
position. His mother, sister and aunts, with their fam- 
ilies, lived in New Orleans; they knew of our betrothal and 
treated me as one of the family. 

One evening after work hours I called to see his sister, 
and there I met a girl whom I had often seen passing “our 
store.” She and I were alone in the drawing room and 
she begun chatting in a very friendly manner. 

Presently she said to me: “You think Warner Graham 
loves you — do you not?” 

“If I did not think so I would not be wearing this ring,” 
1 said, touching the band on my finger. 

“Ha! ha! ha!” and her mocking laughter fell on my ears 
like a jangling discord. 

“I am not wearing a ring,” she said, looking at her long, 
slender fingers, that looked as if they were made to strangle 
me, “but I am quite sure he thinks almost as much of me 
as he does of you, for he shows me every one of your let- 
ters,” and then she begain to quote the very words I re- 
membered to have used in one of my letters to Warner. 

That was the “beginning of the end.” 

“He does?” I replied, with that disagreeable upward in- 
flection of the voice which is so expressive. 

That was all I said — to her — but as soon as I could take 
njy departure I stumbled home like a drunken man, for I 
was blind with pain and anger— went to my room, seized 
pen, ink and paper and “dashed off” an angry, bitter letter 
to my lover. I do not know what I said to him; I cannot 
remember a word of that letter. He answered me in an 
angry spirit, saying, it was unworthy of me “to listen to 
everything,” and giving no satisfactory explanation. 

I was very proud in those old days and I would have 
died rather than ask him for an explanation, or let him know 
how deeply and cruelly I was suffering. (Pride is an im- 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


6i 


mense factor in a woman’s make-up — sometimes it is well 
for her she has it, and sometimes it is not. 

It was not until years after — indeed, not until after I had 
married — that I learned the real truth; Warner had shown 
the girl one of my letters, and one only, because it was so 
“beautiful,” and he was so “proud of it” and of his “clever 
little sweetheart.” (I am merely quoting the words as told 
to me.) Ah! little did I dream that my “smartness” would 
change the current of my life. 

Finally Warner decided to see me, and wrote that he 
would be in the city on a certain day — naming the hour 
when the train would be due, and promising to be with me 
without delay. In his letter he asked me to refrain from 
passing the final sentence until he could see me. And I? 
— Well, I loved him — or thought I did — and my heart 
ached to make it up with him, but “my pride would not 
allow me to recall those words again.” 

The day came — I remember it well, for it was Sunday 
morning, and all the other boarders had gone to church. 
I dressed myself in my most becoming toilette, arranged 
my hair in the style that I knew he liked best and went to 
the window to watch for his coming. 

Oh, what a mysterious thing is a woman’s heart, and how 
wildly mine throbbed and pulsated as I waited and waited, 
and the minutes grew into hours. No need to attempt a 
pen picture of what brain and heart endure in such pain- 
ful hours of longing and suspense. 

The moments dragged themselves away, and still he did 
not come. The beautiful chimes of many church bells 
rung out on the sweet morning air, calling the great city’s 
myriad worshipers to praise and prayer — and still he did 
not come. Oh, those hours! those terrible hours of wait- 
ing! The very memory of them is an agony to me yet. 

At last pride, that accursed passion which has ruined so 


62 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


many lives, rose dominant in my heart and rudely pushed 
love aside. 

“He is keeping me waiting on purpose to punish me,” 
I said to myself. “Well, he shall not have the satisfaction 
of knowing how terribly he has made, me suffer. He is 
treating me with indifference, and I will pay him back in 
his own coin. Now, when he comes to me, he will not find 
me here.” So I donned my hat, drew on my gloves and 
started to church, in anything but a churchly frame of mind. 

I was hardly in the church before I begun to wish I had 
not come, for I could not pray, I could not sing, I could 
not listen to the sermon. Warner Graham’s face kept 
thrusting itself between the preacher’s face and my own 
sad, troubled eyes. I tried, oh! so hard, to listen to the 
sermon, but I could hear nothing save the voice in my 
heart crying: “Has he come yet? Has he come yet?” 

And then I pictured to myself his disappointment, when 
he should come, expecting to find me waiting for him — to 
be met only by a servant and told “She has gone out.” 
“She left no message.” Oh, how I wished I had not come 
to church! How bitterly I regretted having yielded to 
my hasty temper, my abominable pride, my hateful im- 
pulse! Would the sermon never end? 

I sat still, through that awful hour, suffering untold 
agony; and when it was over I hurried home with eager 
haste, hoping and expecting to find him waiting for me — 
but no! He had come, so the “maid” said, a few moments 
— only a few moments — after I was out of sight. (“There is 
a destiny that shapes, our ends, rough-hew them as we 
may.” We cannot avoid destiny.) 

Warner would not wait, and had gone away looking 
“very sober,” as the servant expressed it. 

I always spent my Sunday afternoons with his married 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


63 


sister, and he knew it. “Oh, will he be there?” I asked my- 
self a thousand times. 

I went at the usual hour; he was not there. He had 
been there, but had gone away just before the time for 
my arrival — to show me how bitterly offended he was 
with me for not waiting, when I knew he would come. 

Well, I spent a most wretchedly unhappy afternoon, but 
all things come to an end. Just at twilight he returned and 
sent for me to come into the drawing room. I obeyed 
his summons, but when I walked into his presence I as- 
sumed an indifferent, haughty air — a look that renders a 
woman repellant, no matter how fascinating she may be 
at other times. I have often wondered how women can 
do such violence to their natures — how they can treat with 
coldness one who is dearer to them than life. 

As I entered the door he sprang forward to meet me — 
forgetting all his anger; he caught my impassive hand in 
his, and stooping, kissed my unresponsive lips. I made 
no move, either to kiss him or to avoid his kiss. I would 
not return his caress — though I was hungering to lay my 
head on his breast and sob out all my pain and grief. 


CHAPTER XIII. 


‘Tt is the little rift within the lute, 

That by and by will make the music mute, 

And ever widening, slowly silence all.’' 

Under the influence of his genial smile and pleasant con- 
versation I thawed a little, but I was on one side of a 
chasm and he on the other, and there was only one bridge 
on which he could cross — the explanatio^l why he had 
shown my letters. That he would not do, simply saying 
his “future wife must trust” him “all in all or not at all.” 
He undertook to cross the fearful abyss which separated us 
on a bridge of “pretty theory” and — 

This cool, indifferent love was not the kind of love 
my soul longed for; it was not the kind of love I had 
read about in my tragical novels. I wanted to be loved as 
I had read of other women being loved — with an all-absorb- 
ing, maddening love. It was only a romantic wish, born 
of my ardent, passionate nature, to rule with my little will 
the destiny of a strong man. 

“Could this be love? Could Warner really love me — and 
yet run this reckless risk of losing me?” 

“If this be love, it is not worth the keeping,” I kept re- 
peating over and over to my eager, questioning heart. 
“Such love as this could never ‘fill the waste places of my 
soul.’ ” 

However, things were “smoothed over,” compromised, 
so to speak (and compromises are usually unsatisfactory 
measures), but it was only the deceptive security of a sleep- 
ing volcano. 


64 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


65 


Either Warner did not love me, or else he forgot that “A 
woman's affection is not a thing to be asked for, and had 
for only the asking. When one is truly in love, one not 
only says it, but shows it.” Warner did not show the kind 
of love that my warm, affectionate, voluptuous temperament 
demanded. I imagined that he neglected me, and I steeled 
my heart against him — though, in doing so, I crucified my- 
self daily, hourly. 

One evening he came to me and said — in his boyish, eager 
way — “Hilda, I am going to take you to see the Bernhardt 
tonight; she plays Camille, and I know you will enjoy the 
play. I have — ” 

“Oh!” I cried, interrupting him, in my rapturous delight 
at the prospect of any little taste of pleasure, any little piti- 
ful chance of seeing something of life. 

Does any one laugh at the absurdity of that expression— 
“seeing something of life” — with reference to so simple a 
thing as going to see a “play?” Well, that is like an un- 
thinking world! Imagine a young woman of — say seven- 
teen years of age — of average intelligence, who had, for 
years, been reading of the “pleasures of life;” had longed 
for them with an intensity that was exquisite torture; who 
had never seen a half-dozen “plays” in all her life— had 
never been to a “dress ball” — had never had the pleasure of 
a summer outing, of mountain climbing or sea side sports, 
or any of those other countless pleasures that so many mil- 
lions of people indulge in without thinking of, or appreci- 
ating the gifts that the gods send them; imagine such a 
woman bound down to the hopeless drudgery of daily toil, 
on wages that would barely keep body and soul together, 
save and pinch and economize as she might, and your 
laughter will turn to pity at sight of the pathetic picture 
imagination has painted for you. 

“Well, but why is it your life was so devoid of pleasures?” 

5 


66 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


That question is easily answered. Previous to my mother's 
death I was too young to attend balls (I went to one, a 
small affair), or indulge in ‘‘outings” (besides my education 
was not finished), and there were no theaters or opera 
houses in our town. 

“But after you went to New Orleans to live?” 

“Have I not said that I was a saleswoman, on wages that 
allowed of no luxuries?” 

“But you were young; had you no friends, no admirers, 
like other young women? for it was no disgrace to be a 
saleswoman ; there are lots of saleswomen, in big cities, who 
belong to the nicest families, and who have their pleasures,” 

Yes, I was young, but I was betrothed to Warner Gra- 
ham, and had no right to receive the attentions of other 
young men, even if I had known any (which I did not); and 
the saleswomen who “belong to nice families and have their 
pleasures” are usually those who have their homes and their 
circles of old friends and acquaintances. I was a “stranger 
in a strange land,” a mere waif, a pitiful little isolated atom 
of humanity. Warner’s relatives tried to be kind to me, 
but their ways were not like mine. I could not (with my 
countrytown morals) attend picnics and dances on Sunday 
afternoons. I could not go to the theater or opera, Sun- 
days; or ‘‘play cards;” or indulge in any of those numberless 
pleasures which “city people” consider harmless. And so, 
they called me a “prude,” and finally left me to spend my 
time in my own “silly, stupid way,” as they called it. Then, 
after Warner and I quarreled, life was yet more desolate, 
for his family and I became estranged, and then, I had no 
friends, no acquaintances. If I could have done as too 
many girls— alas !— will allow themselves to do, I might 
have tasted many pleasures ; but I scorned to lower my wo- 
manhood, to forfeit my self-respect in exchange for those 
things which, thus obtained, would have been to me but 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


67 


“dead sea fruits.” And so I lived on, a miserable, dull, 
monotonous, dreary existence! Oh, if there were only only 
one bright, beautiful hour, of life to look back upon! But 
what a digression ! 

When I interrupted Warner with my sudden exclama- 
tion, he looked at me and smiled at the enthusiasm of my 
little upturned face and sparkling eyes. 

“Yes,” he resumed, “I have bought six tickets” (my face 
lost its happy light; my eyes continued to sparkle, but with 
vexation and anger, for I wanted my lover all to myself. 
Who can blame me? I appeal to every woman who has 
ever loved a man; was it mean and selfish of me?) “I am 
going to take Aunt Maida’s girls with us.” 

(Now if there is anything on earth that does look ridicu- 
lous, it is to see one young man escorting five females.) 

“After the ‘play,’ ” he rattled on, not noticing the cloud 
that had settled on the “small heaven of my face,” “we 
will—” 

“Excuse me,” I said, interrupting him again, “I shall not 
go to the theater this evening.” 

“Not go to the theater!” he cried in an incredulous voice, 
knowing, as he did, how I loved it; how rapt and lost I had 
been over the two or three plays I had been fortunate 
enough to see in my poor, little, starved, “cabbage-like” 
existence. 

“I shall not go to the theater this evening,” I reiterated 
coldly and firmly. 

“Why?” he asked. 

“Because I do not choose to.” 

“Now, Hilda, what nonsense is this? What new, queer 
notion have you taken into that head of yours that’s always 
getting notions like nobody else’s under the sun. Not go 
to the theater, when you know you love it better than any- 
thing else in the world ; better, even, than you love me!” 


68 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


“Nevertheless, I shall not go; perhaps my motive in re- 
fusing to do so is to prove to you how little — how very 
little I care for you, since I care more for the 'p^^y’ ^ 

for you ; yet I refuse to go to the ‘play’ when I have the op- 
portunity to do so.” 

“Oh, pshaw! Hilda, this will not do; I have already 
bought your ticket — you must go; what’s the use to waste 
the ticket?” he replied, refusing to notice my hateful words. 

“The ticket? You need not waste it; give it to one of 
your numerous ‘bosom friends,’ I answered; and it is im- 
possible to put on paper the tone I threw into my cutting 
speech. 

“Well, I’m blessed if I can understand women!” Warner 
burst out, with anger and vexation in his voice. 

(And “them’s my sentiments;” for though I am a woman, 
“I’m blessed if I can understand” them. In looking back 
upon those old, sad, bitter-sweet days, my wonder grows 
and grows, that I could have had the strength of will to re- 
sist temptation, to deny myself the little blossoms of pleas- 
ure and happiness when they came into my thorn-strewn 
path; that I could have acted the part I did, during the 
whole week that Warner stayed near me. 

Warner was awful angry with me, but he went to the 
“play,” and took his Aunt Maida’s four girls and a ‘‘bosom 
friend,” and had a “good time” (as a man can) while the 
woman he professed to love sat in her desolate, make-shift 
of a home, in company with jealousy, pride and wounded 
love — a goodly company — and “eat her heart out,” for 
lack of something better to eat. 

(“Oh! one may laugh now, over an agony that has been 
dead so many years.”) 

The next trouble was something similar, and yet how 
different, in that this time he proposed to accompany me 
and those same four cousins to church instead of the theater. 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


69 


He was very fond of his aunt and her four daughters. 
Well, they were nice, good girls; but if Warner had really 
and truly loved, he would have wanted me — and only me — 
and he would have wanted me all to himself. His willing- 
ness to have all his cousins with us, was proof positive to my 
jealous, exacting heart, that he did not love me. 

When the crowd was ready to start, Warner looked 
around for me and was greatly surprised to find me sitting 
demurely in one corner, deeply interested in the evening 
paper. 

“Why, Hilda! what do you mean? jump into your hat, 
quick; don’t you see we are all ready to go?” 

I am not going, thank you,” I said, indifferently. 

“Humph!” he exclaimed, “Fd like to know what’s getting 
the matter with you, that you won’t go anywhere with me?” 

“I do not care to go to church this evening.” 

Hardly were they out of sight, before I was en route for 
church with two old ladies who lived next door, and asked 
me to go along with them. 

When I walked down the aisle, I saw Warner (from the 
corner of my eye) look up and give a little start of surprise 
when he saw who it was. 

My conduct — unreasonable in his eyes — provoked and 
irritated him beyond endurance, and when we met again, 
he gave me a severe lecture on my “contrariness,” and 
showed me plainly he was determined to be as stubborn as 
I — the worst possible method of managing a woman with 
my warm-hearted, excitable, impulsive temperament. 

At last the day came when he must say good-by and go 
back to his work. I had obtained permission for a holiday, 
and was spending it with his sister. The night preceding 
the day of his departure I had stayed with his mother, be- 
cause she wanted Warner and me to be together with her 
the last evening. Oh, I do not know what evil spirit pos- 


70 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


sessed me; but when Warner came up to where his mother 
and I were standing on the front balcony, I merely bowed 
and took no further notice of him; acted as though per- 
fectly unconscious of his presence; yet, all the time, I was 
wild to “make it up” with him, to tell him how truly I loved 
him, and how sorry I was to have marred his pleasure. 

If he had spoken one kind word to me. If he had said, 
“Hilda, let us forget this foolish misunderstanding; let us be 
true to each other,” all my pride would have broken down 
completely, for I was utterly worn out — heart, mind and 
soul — with the unequal struggle. But he did not address 
one word to me. He was waiting for me to show the first 
signs of surrender, and I would not. Pride whispered to 
me, “You are a woman; it is the man’s place to make the 
overtures.” 

Directly his mother said, “We will go up to the library. 
I have a very important letter to answer, but it will not take 
me long. You and Warner can entertain each other until 
I have finished.” 

I saw Warner cast a hasty look in my direction, but I 
said never a word. I thought, as it was the last evening, 
of course he would spend it with me; but I would not ask 
him to do so — no, not even if I died for it; so I swept by 
him with head high lifted, and not the quiver of a muscle, 
though every fiber of my being was on a cruel rack of pain- 
ful suspense. 

I went to the library, seated myself on a divan (as far re- 
moved as possible from the writing desk) and waited as 
complacently as I could for the coming of my lover. 

I “reckoned without my host.” 

His mother walked into the room alone. I shot a swift 
glance past her, but no one else was there; and my face 
darkened and saddened (if it could darken and sadden any 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


71 


more than it was already). Oh, the bitter, bitter disap- 
pointment! 

“Warner would not come, because you did not ask him,” 
his mother said quietly, and then went to her writing, and 
I was left alone with my nameless misery. 

“Oh Heaven! what must I do— what must I do? Should 
I run after him and call him back? Was he gone too far 
to hear my frantic cry?” — I kept asking myself in voiceless 
agony. But I sat there as motionless as the marble bust 
of Psyche that stood so near me, with its cold, white still- 
ness. 

0 God! why are human beings created with such a fear- 
ful capacity for suffering? 

Well, the next morning Warner came to spend his last 
hour with us. We were all at his sister’s. (Oh, how dis- 
tinctly I remember that bitter, that miserable, that wretched 
hour!) When he came into the room I was very busy em- 
broidering a piece of bronze satin with rainbow colored 
beads that one of the children had asked me “to do for a 
pincushion.” 

1 bent to my work as though it were a matter of “life and 
death” that I should lose no time. I never once raised 
my eyes, but went on, silently counting beads and produc- 
ing impossible flowers. 

He chatted with his cousins (they were all there — a kind 
of family gathering to bid him good-by) who were all 
dawdling over some one of the countless trifles that women 
pretend to work at — praised their skill and teased them, as 
men will do, for spending their time on such “foolish 
things.” I could see, without lifting my eyes, that he was 
very restless and that he kept throwing furtive glances at 
me — and then looking at his watch and speaking of the 
fleeting moments. “Only thirty minutes more, and then I 


72 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


must leave you,” he said, speaking to the girls, though I 
knew he meant it for me. 

“Only twenty minutes now, and yet I see no sign of tears; 
what can it mean, Hallie? Are you not grieved that such 
dear cousins must part?” (Little did he think that his 
“dear cousins” were partly the cause — though innocent — of 
the tragedy of his life and mine.) 

He and the girls kept up a flow of “small talk” such as 
all the world is familiar with, so I will not repeat it here. 
“Only ten minutes now; how the moments fly, as if they 
had thousands of little wings,” he said lightly — then crossed 
the room — caught up a high stool (some one had brought 
it in to reach a canary that had escaped its cage, and was 
beating its little life out, high up on the window pane), 
drew it close to me, and sat down, holding his open watch 
in his big, white, strong hand. 

Whenever I recall the pain of that indescribably cruel 
hour, it invariably reminds me of the words of the sweet, 
immortal singer — Tennyson: 

“Strange, that the mind, when fraught 
With a passion so intense. 

One would think that it well 
Might drown all life in the eye — 

That it should, by being so overwrought. 
Suddenly strike on a sharper sense 
For a shell, or a flower, little things 
Which else would have been past by! 

And now I remember — ; ah, yes, I even remember 
how he seated himself on that high stool, just facing me. 
Every one has seen a man take a chair and sit on it with 
his face to its back — not an elegant position, nor one to be 
recommended. The stool had no back, but the gesture, 
in seating himself, was the same ; to be plain, he straddled it. 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


73 


Strange, indeed, that my mind “fraught with a passion 
so intense” should have taken note, and formed an indelible 
impression of so small a trifle! 

Well, he sat down and turned his eyes upon me as if to 
compel me, by the very intensity of his gaze, to look at 
him. But I would not look at him; I only bent my head 
lower and went on counting beads, and growing unnatural 
leaves and flowers, as though such beaded gew-gaws were 
of more importance than anything on earth. Parting hours 
might come and go; farewells fall from quivering lips; but 
my bead work could not be neglected. The moments were 
flying; ah, heaven! would he never speak to me? Well 
it certainly was not my place to seek a reconciliation,” I 
kept assuring myself. 

The parting moment came ; he told the girls good-by ; he 
held out his hand to me and said quietly, “Good-by, Hilda!” 
I extended the tips of my fingers, but I never uttered a 
word, or raised my head, or quivered an eyelid. I might 
well have been mistaken for a statue done in brown stone. 
He paused an instant as if waiting to see what I would do — 
then suddenly stooped, pressed one quick kiss on my impas- 
sive, unresponsive lips, and — was gone. 

O God! what immeasurable agony the human heart can 
bear and still live on. 

He was gone from me! Something pressed down upon 
my heart like a nameless, horrid nightmare. Gone! gone 
forever! gone without a word. And one little word would 
have made him mine again — yet I would not speak it! 

Oh, what an inexplicable mystery a woman is! 


CHAPTER XIV. 

' “My life has crept so long on a broken wing.” 

A day or two after we parted I received a letter from him. 
I cannot remember his words, and would not choose to re- 
peat them if I could, but the contents of that letter only 
added fuel to the, fire that was already raging within me, 
and so I treated it with silence. Then he wrote again, say- 
ing if I were “going to believe all the world in preference 
to trusting him, it were better for us to forget each other.” 

I simply returned his letter without a word of comment. 
I do not know what my idea was. I only know that his 
conduct maddened me. 

When he received the letter and saw that the handwriting 
on the envelope was mine, he thought it was a letter from 
me. (Manlike he thought his threat had frightened me, and 
that I had written to implore his forgiveness), and he was so 
glad and so happy that he waved it around his head, and 
cried out to his comrades, “Hurrah! a letter from my sweet- 
heart at last!” 

Then he tore it open with eager, trembling fingers, to 
find — only his own letter returned to him. 

When his comrades saw his crest-fallen face, and learned 
of his disappointment, they “guyed” him in that cruelly 
unmerciful manner known only among young men. 

(How did I discover all this? By no magic whatever. 
I met one of those “comrades” in after years, and he told 
me “all about it.”) Their taunts goaded him to madness, 
so he wrote me a letter asking me to “return his letters and 
consider our engagement at an end.” 

74 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


75 


“With pleasure, I will return your letters,” I replied, 
“when you return mine. And, as for our ‘engagement,’ 1 
considered that ‘at an end’ several weeks ago.” 

He sent the letters; I took them to the grate and cremated 
them one by one. When the last one had been consumed, 
and the whole budget of “love” lay, a heap of white ashes, 
I sentimentally repeated to myself, “I have been to the 
funeral of all my hopes, and entombed them one by one,” 
quite a pretty little burial service; but, oh, it was very sad to 
me! 

After this mournful duty had been performed, I gathered 
up all his letters and mailed them to him; then I boxed his 
photographs, album, etc., and sent them — and it was all 
over between us. 

But the engagement ring; what became of it? 

Oh ! I forgot to say that I had lost the engagement ring 
while at school in the North. I remember my schoolmates 
told me, at the time, that it was “bad luck to lose an en- 
gagement ring, and that I would never marry Mr. Graham.” 
I laughingly replied I was not “the least superstitious,” 
and I am not superstitious, yet; well, I never married Mr. 
Graham. 

When Warner’s letters reached him, they were in a most 
pitiable condition. Womanlike, I had tied the package so 
insecurely (this remark will not apply to the New Woman) 
that it had come open, and the “letters could have been 
read by anybody,” so I heard was Warner’s complaint. 

The condition of those letters served to increase his rage 
against me, for he thought I had sent them to him in that 
careless manner, on purpose to anger him — when he ought 
to have known that a woman couldn’t “do up” a neat pack- 
age (in those days), and that no true woman would ever 
willingly expose to stranger eyes the letters written to her 
by a man who had once been “all the world” to her. 




76 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


But such is the density of man. 

I have often pondered over the sad drama of my life, and 
have wondered if Fate had a grudge against me in thus 
separating me from my love, or if she were a good friend 
who interposed to save me from what might have been a 
fatal marriage. After all, there is no way of knowing what 
“might have been.” I kno\v that we parted; that I went 
back to my work more hopeless, more desolate, more miser- 
able. I told myself over and over that “Life held nothing 
more for me — that my heart was dead — burned out — that I 
had ‘consigned my heart’s best to the grave and its gloom’ — 
that I had but tasted the wine of love, and it had ‘turned 
to wormwood’ on my lips.” 

At night, I sobbed mself to sleep on a pillow drenched 
with tears, and altogether I was a very lonely, forlorn, 
heart-broken creature. My sorrow was doubly hard to bear, 
because I had to bear it alone. If only I could have had a 
friend! But there was no one to whom I could go for sym- 
pathy, and I repeatedly asked myself, “Will the time 
ever come when my ‘troubled breast’ shall find its rest?” 
The answer came, 

“If Love in thee to grief give birth. 

Six feet of earth can more than he; 

There calm and free and unoppressed 
Shalt thou find rest.” 


CHAPTER XV. 


“Life hath quicksands — Life hath snares! 

Care and age come unawares!” 

I held my position as saleswoman until after the rush 
of the Mardi-Gras season, when my employer begun to 
reduce his corps of workers. At last my time came and I 
was in a great, heartless city, homeless and without work. 
Day after day I scanned with desperate hope the “want 
columns.” One day, in sheer recklessness, I determined to 
answer an advertisement for chamber maids for the St. 
Charles hotel. 

I dressed myself neatly in my best black suit, and — with 
that false pride which clings so tenaciously in the minds of 
southern women — hid my face behind the folds of a thick 
black veil and started out bravely in my terrible quest for 
work. 

With a trembling hand I rung the door bell and was 
ushered into the presence of the matron — a kindly faced 
woman who did not keep me standing while she questioned 
me. She took me into her own room, told me to be seated 
and asked me a question or two. She did not seem to 
know I had come as an applicant for the position of servant. 

At last I summoned up courage to tell her that I wanted 
work and had come in answer to the advertisement for 
chamber maids. She looked at me in utter astonishment. 
She eyed me critically from head to foot. At last she 
asked: “Have you ever been out to service before?” 

“No, madam,” I said (and at that moment I was sorry 
that I could not answer “Yes, I have been a servant all my 

77 


78 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


life,” for I wanted work — work of any kind that would keep 
me independent and honorable) “but I am quite sure I could 
make beds nicely and sweep rooms and dust furniture with- 
out having had any previous experience.” 

Again she looked at me, shook her head a little, then 
said: “I don’t think I can give you the ‘place’; pardon me, 
but you look too much of a lady to take such a position.” 

“Oh! I am a lady — at least I hope I am — but please do not 
refuse to give me the position ; you do not know how much 
it means to me.” 

“I cannot,” she said, firmly. “You would have to sleep 
in the hotel and share your bed with one of the servant 
girls, and I feel quite sure you would not be willing to do 
that. I might give you a cot in my room, but that would 
cause great dissension among the other girls. No, I cannot 
give it to you.” 

“Sleep with a servant girl!” That quite staggered me; 
but I swallowed a big lump that kept trying to choke me, 
and said: “But I must have work — oh! I must have work!” 

“I cannot give you such work; you are far too young 
and good-looking; you would be a target for too many 
poisoned arrows; there, are too many temptations of all 
kinds in a public place like this, and if any trouble should 
befall you I should always feel that I was, in some way, 
partly responsible.” 

“My God!” I cried, in my great disappointment, and my 
terror of failing to get work, “is there any more probability 
of temptation in a house like this than out there in that 
great city?” 

“I cannot give you the place; I am truly sorry for you, 
but take my advice and get a place as governess in some 
nice family.” 

“Easier said than done,” I thought, but I could not an- 
swer, for the big lump had come back into my throat and 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


79 


the tears welled up, all unbidden, and overflowed. I buried 
my face in my hands and strove to hide my weakness — 
then the bell rung again, a sharp, quick stroke, as if by a 
firm hand accustomed to such experience. 

Another girl coming for work. Would her fate be as 
mine? 

“Stay here until my return,” said the matron, kindly, “and 
finish your cry; ’twill do you good.” Then she disap- 
peared and closed the door behind her. I wiped away the 
salty, disfiguring tears and began to philosophize, for my 
mind had undergone a sudden revulsion; besides. Nature 
meant me to be an optimist; circumstances have made me 
a pessimist. I tried to persuade myself that it was all for 
the best — that I never could have hob-nobbed with common 
servants. (I was to be an uncommon one.) 

After coming to the above wise conclusion I raised my 
sorrow-bowed head and began to survey the room, pour 
passer le temps, until the matron’s return. The matron, 
by the way, was a typical old maid; she had a long, skinny 
neck, cork-screw curls and was a prim to a degree. 

“Ah!” I mused; “this is an old maid’s sanctum sanctorum 
— let’s see what it is like, for I was never in one before.” 

“Carpets, rugs, bric-a-brac, and — is it possible!” I men- 
tally exclaimed, as my eyes fell on one of those peculiar 
boxes in which pet snakes are usually kept. I was fas- 
cinated. I could not remove my eyes. Directly I saw a 
black head and two gleaming eyes, and then I felt a pro- 
cession of cold chills creeping up and down my spinal 
column. “Horrors! if that matron does not return quickly 
every particle of marrow in my bones will be frozen to 
icicles,” I said, having experienced that strange revulsion 
from hopeless despair to reckless mirth — a mirth that al- 
ways reminds me of “The Dance of Death,” or “The Skele- 
ton’s Ball.” 


8o 


LIFE— AS FULDA FOUND IT. 


Well, I sat there and watched that queer box with its 
awful inmate in a kind of stupid terror. I could not pick 
myself up and take unceremonious leave; it would be rude 
— and what would she think? At last the matron returned 
and I made my escape — thankful to get away from the 
glare of those baleful eyes. (I always did hate a snake.) 

I ran downstairs and out through the big door, and as 
I stepped upon the banquette I met another snake — oh, no! 
I meant to say I met a man; a rich, influential banker — a 
gentleman, so the world called him. I had been intro- 
duced to this “gentleman’’ several weeks before, by a party 
of my old acquaintances who had come to “the city’’ to 
take in Mardi-Gras. 

These old acquaintances, who had known me from my 
childhood, had hunted me up and made me come to the 
hotel, where they were staying, and spend the day with 
them. That night the whole party went to the theater. 
It fell to my lot to go with the banker (he needs no other 
name), who was a great friend of my old acquaintances, 
and as they were rich people he was paying them much 
attention — showing them “the sights’’ and helping to make 
them have a good time. 

I went with the banker, as I have before stated, simply 
because in pairing off the party it fell to my lot. We went 
to see Fanny Davenport in “Leah.’’ The party succeeded 
in getting very favorable seats, and from the time the cur- 
tain rose until it fell on the last act, I sat perfectly spell- 
bound, entranced, wholly forgetting my surroundings. (It 
was so pitifully seldom that any little stray bit of pleasure 
drifted into my life.) 

When the curtain fell for the last time and the vast sea 
of heads rose up to depart, I came back to earth with a 
shock. I drew a long breath — a great inward sigh — and 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


8i 


looked up into the eyes that I felt for the first time were 
gazing into my face. 

“Well, Miss Beverly, you certainly have enjoyed the 
play; it did me good to look at you; I never saw so rapt 
a look on any face before.” 

“Yes,” I said, innocently, “I love it very much; this has 
been a ‘red-letter day’ in my life; or should I say a ‘night 
to be marked with a white stone’?” 

“Either will do — but why do you say such a thing? do 
you so seldom have the pleasure of seeing a play?” 

“I could name the plays I have seen on the fingers of 
one hand,” I said, and then I laughed at his exclamation of 
surprise and incredulity. 

“Oh! I am a ‘country hoosier,’ you know, and have seen 
very little of life — especially of city life.” 

“A country hoosier?” he said, looking at me. “Well, 
you do not look like one, or talk like one, or act like one.” 

“Oh, I think I must have acted like one, when I sat 
there gaping at the ‘play’ in such a manner as to attract 
your notice,” I replied. 

“Indeed, no! it was a beautiful sight to me — your inno- 
cent enjoyment. I should love to give you that pleasure 
often, if I might. I will send you tickets if you will accept 
them — may I ?” 

“Thanks, no. It would be useless, as I could not pos- 
sibly accept.” 

“Why? There would be no harm in it,” he said, earn- 
estly. 

“Don’t ask me ‘why’? I replied. “I cannot because I 
cannot.” 

“Because,” he said, laughing heartily, “after all, you 
are like other women in some things.” 

“I am ‘like other women’ in many things — in most things, 

I should say.” 

6 


82 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


“Tell me some of the things in which you are like other 
women.” 

Just then we arrived at the hotel, and my old acquaint- 
ances turned and said: “Well, Hilda, did you have a pleas- 
ant evening?” 

“Oh, delightful!” I cried, enthusiastically. “It was. like 
a beautiful, stray gleam of sunshine suddenly falling into a 
long-darkened room. Oh, I cannot tell you how much I 
appreciate your kindness.” 

“I am very glad you enjoyed it. As it is so late, I know 
you are anxious to get home, or you will not feel like get- 
ting up and going back to work tomorrow.” “Oh!” with 
a little inward gasp as I thought of the morrow. 

“I will see Miss Beverly safe home,” said^the banker to 
my old acquaintances. “I know you are all very tired and it 
will be only a pleasure to me — besides it is right on my 
way to my hotel.” 

“Thank you very much.” “Now, Hilda,” turning to me, 
“we will call tomorrow at the store to tell you good-bye, 
etc., etc.” 

Then, after more words, and good-nights, the banker and 
I resumed our walk. 

“You have not answered my question,” he said, tucking 
my hand snugly into the bend of his arm (for in those days 
the gentlemen did not take the ladies’ arms). 

“Well, to begin with, I am like other women in that I 
love everything that is beautiful.” 

“Everything that is beautiful. That is a very sweeping 
assertion. Do you mean that you love beautiful hats, beau- 
tiful dresses, beautiful jewels, or what?” 

“ ‘Or what,’ if that includes beautiful women, beautiful 
scenery, beautiful architecture, beautiful flowers, beautiful 
birds, beautiful pictures, and — oh-h! a thousand beautiful 
things,” I replied. 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


83 


“Then you think the world a very beautiful place?” he 
asked. 

“Yes', the world is very beautiful; but Life is very sad, 
for some of us.” 

“Why do you think Life is very sad?” he a^ked. 

“Because, I have found it so — by my own experience. 
Then I have read a great deal which showed that others 
had found it so. The poets, also, write some very sad 
things about ‘Life.’ 

“But why do you put ‘beautiful women’ first on the list? 
Most women hate to see beauty in other women,” he said. 

“Oh, I love it!” I cried eagerly; “there is nothing more 
beautiful, in my eyes, than a beautiful woman. I have 
always thought a beautiful woman the most gloriously per- 
fect handiwork of God. I revel in the beauty of women, 
and it pleases me, beyond the power of words to express, 
to see them, as I saw them tonight— robed in their elegant 
dresses of silk, and velvet and satin and shimmering laces, 
their bright eyes sparkling as if in rivalry of the scintillat- 
ing jets, flashing from the priceless jewels.” 

“Then you do love ‘elegant dresses and priceless jewels’?” 

“Of course I do; otherwise I were more or less than 
woman.” • 

“And you do not feel envious?” he asked, looking down 
at my ‘shabby genteel’ woollen dress. (I felt the look, 
though I did not see it) “Not in the least,” I answered 
decisively. “Naturally, I often wish that I could array my 
own person in beautiful, beautifying habiliments, for I am 
not an advocate of ‘beauty unadorned.’ ” 

“Why should you admire so greatly a woman’s beauty? 
It is only ‘skin deep.’ ” 

“Well, that is deep enough for most people, though I 
have seen beauty that is soul deep,” I said. 


84 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


“Why, yes, I have seen many a woman whose sole beauty 
was the beauty of her soul,” he answered quite seriously. 

“If you mean that for pun, it is a very poor one,” I said 
indignantly. “Ah! here is the end of our journey,” I 
said, as I stopped in front of a gloomy looking house. 
“I am obliged to you for seeing me home.” 

“The obligation is mine, I assure you,” he replied gallant- 
ly. “I do not remember when I have spent such a pleasant 
evening. I am sorry you will not accept ‘tickets,’ but I 
hope we wlil meet again.” 

“Thank you — and, now, good-night,” I replied. 

“Au revoir,” he answered, lifting his hat as politely as 
though I had been Miss Gould instead of the sales-woman, 
Hilda Beverly. (This is a long digression, but it was a 
necessary explanation of how I came to know so big a 
“fish” as a rich banker. I scorned to make “street ac- 
quaintances,” as I have seen many women do.) 

But “to return to our moutons.” As I stepped out upon 
the banquette, I was startled from my reverie by a voice 
at my elbow, saying, “Good morning. Miss Beverly; this is 
indeed a pleasure I was not expecting today.” 

I turned quickly, to meet the Banker’s eyes looking at 
me kindly, as I thought. 

“Good morning,” I replied courteously, and was about to 
move on alone. 

“Pardonnez-moi,” said the Banker, smiling pleasantly, 
“if you have no objection, I will walk with you a block or 
two.” 

I saw no cause of “objection,” and so he joined me, 
touching lightly upon the various topics of the day. 

(He seemed so kind and fatherly (he was fully thirty years 
my senior) that it never once dawned upon my ignorant, 
unsophisticated mind that I was breathing an atmosphere 
more poisonous than that of the deadly upas tree). 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


85 


Then the conversation became more personal, and he 
said, with a question in his voice, “You are not at work 
today?” 

“No,” I replied, in saddened tones, “I have lost my 
place at the store; many of the saleswomen have been dis- 
charged, but all of them have homes in the city, except 
myself.” 

“What shall you do now?” he asked, with sympathy in his 
tones. 

“Oh, I do not know; I was just returning from an 
unsuccessful quest for work when you met me.” 

“Poor child!” he said tenderly. 

“Oh, please don’t speak to me like that; please don’t 
speak a kind word to me now, for if you do I shall certainly 
cry, and I do not want to make a scene here on the street,” 
I said wistfully. 

“Let’s go in here and have a cup of nice coffee,” he said, 
just as we were passing a restaurant; “then you can tell me 
all about it.” 

I hesitated, not because I was wordly-wise enough to see 
any impropriety in the act, or to suspect any evil ; for in my 
extreme ignorance of the world no thought of evil ever en- 
tered my mind ; but I wanted to get back to my room, that 
my aching heart might “free itself in hot tears.” 

“Come,” he said, gently, “you look weary, almost hag- 
gard; a cup of good, strong coffee will pull you around all 
right.” 

“I wonder if he knows how hungry I am, and feels a 
delicacy in offering me food. Well, if he does, it cer- 
tainly is kind of him,” I mused. Oh, how hungry I was! 
for I had been working ten hours a day, for months, with 
no better nourishment for my half-famished body than 
baker’s bread, and butter, and, sometimes, an orange or a 
few grapes. 


86 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


“Well, since you are so kind, I will — for, just at this 
moment, a cup of good coffee has more allurements for me 
than if you had offered me a draught of ‘nectar of the 
gods,” I said laughingly, for I was determined not to cry. 

(Does any one condemn me for such imprudence? Re- 
member, I was hungry and tired and weak, and my head 
ached — or my heart, I hardly knew which — my bodily 
strength and vitality had all been exhausted in the futile 
effort to supply needed warmth, for during all the bitter 
cold winter months, I had not known what it was to have 
a fire in my room — coal was too dear. Would you have 
refused the offer? Would any starving girl have refused 
such a tempting, innocent-seeming offer? 

“O, God, that bread should be so dear 
And flesh and blood so cheap!” 

“You are a strange woman,” he said, looking at me in- 
tently. 

“I have been called that before today,” I replied lightly. 

“One moment you are ready to weep with self pity, the 
next you are making a joke of your own grief,” he con- 
tinued. 

“It is better to laugh than to weep; at least that is what 
some poet, or somebody else tells us,”- 1 said banteringly. 

“ ‘Some poet, or somebody’ — that is not very definite in- 
formation.” 

In the meantime we had entered the restaurant, and he 
had led the way to a cozy little room, quite apart from the 
larger, more noisy rooms I had noticed while passing 
through a long hall. The room was furnished with a 
small table, two chairs, and a large, comfortable-looking 
sofa. 

“Bring lunch for two,” he said to the waiter who answered 
his ring. “Snipe on toast, rum omelette, scalloped chicken. 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


87 


potatoes a la niege,” etc., and bring one bottle of white 
wine, and one of your finest champagne.” 

I sat and stared in open-eyed amazement that I should 
have found so kind a friend. Why! he must be some 
fairy god-father — (if there is such a thing.) 

The waiter (polite to obsequiousness to one who ordered 
such costly lunches) soon returned, placed the various 
articles on the table, gave the finishing touch to the rum 
omelet — which was something new to me — ascertained if 
all wants were supplied, then bowed himself out and closed 
the door behind him. 

“Now we can have a nice little tete-a-tete, undisturbed,” 
said the Banker; “but, first, let me see you eat something, 
for it strikes me you are looking very weak; there are 
purple shadows under your eyes.” 

“And now,” he said, after supplying me with the choicest 
bits of everything (which I know now in my maturer wis- 
dom, is unlike a man, unless he has a motive — or happens 
to be in love), and had filled a glass with champagne, and 
another with wine, “tell me if you have been to any more 
‘plays’ since I saw you last.” 

(“He is trying to make me forget my trouble, so that I 
can enjoy this nice lunch,” I thought, and was growing 
more and more grateful. I imagine the serpent approached 
Eve under the beautiful guise of friendship.) 

“I have been to matinee once, and to the opera Aida, but 
as it was all in French, I could not understand any of it, 
except what was revealed through the sense of sight, 
and the passion expressed in their voices. But it was very 
grand.” 

“Yes; but you are not drinking your wine,” he said. 

“I prefer the champagne; I am luxurious, by nature, in 
my tastes,” I replied. 

“What a pity your tastes cannot be gratified! — and you 


88 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


have such an immense capacity for enjoyment. Do you 
know, I have never known a woman more impressionable 
or of greater sensibility,” he said, looking at me with 
sympathetic eyes. 

“If what Tk Marvel’ says is true, then your opinion of 
me is not favorable to me at all.” 

“What does ‘Ik Marvel’ say?” he questioned, in a half- 
amused, half earnest way. 

“If you are going to laugh at me, I shall not tell you.” 

“Oh, I wouldn’t laugh, for the world, if it displeases you ; 
but do drink your wine, too, just to please me, and then tell 
me what ‘Ik Marvel’ says.” 

“I do not want the wine, so you will pardon me for not 
obeying your first request.” (How fortunate for me that I 
did not want it, for, in my ignorance and innocence, I 
knew nothing then of “mixed drinks,” or of their effect on 
the brain; and, certainly, I never dreamed that a man, 
woman’s natural protector (faugh!), could be so brutal as to 
invent such a hellish device for killing a woman’s soul, by 
clouding first her brain.) 

“But I will obey your second; he says: ‘Take, for in- 
stance, your heart of sentiment and quick sensibility — a 
weak, warm-working heart, flying off in tangents of un- 
happy influence, unguided by prudence, and perhaps virtue, 
and the more it is indulged, the more strong and binding 
such a habit of sensibility becomes. It is a terrible in- 
heritence, and one that a strong man or woman will study 
to subdue. But this sparkling sensibility to one struggling 
under infirmity, or with grief or poverty, is very dreadful. 
The soul is too nicely and keenly hinged to be wrenched 
without mischief. How it shrinks like a hurt child from all 
that is vulgar, harsh and crude! Alas, for such a man! 
With a woman it is worse; with her, this delicate suscepti- 
bility is like a frail flower, that quivers at every rough blast 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


89 


of heaven; her own delicacy wounds her; her highest charm 
is perverted to a curse.” (Here I paused.) 

“That is not all he says about it; tell me the rest,” he 
said,, quickly. 

“Oh! I will not. You know it as well as I do, and you 
are only laughing at me,” I answered. 

“Then I will tell it you. Ik Marvel says: ‘With her, 
judgment, prudence and discretion are cold, measured 
terms, which have no meaning, except as they attach to the 
actions of others. Of her own acts, she never predicates 
them; feeling is much too high to allow her to submit to 
any such obtrusive guides of conduct.’ Now, Miss Hilda, 
tell me, is not your ‘feeling too high’ to allow you ‘to 
submit to any such obtrusive guides as ‘judgment, prudence 
and discretion?’ ” 

“I do not know; it is ‘a wise man who knows himself,’ 
and I am not a wise man,” I said jestingly. 

“Thank Heaven for that!” he said, in serio-comic tones. 

“Hilda,” he said, musingly, “what a sweet, odd name;” 
then looking across the table at me, with a gleam in his 
eyes that I did not understand, he said : 

“Wouldn’t you like to dress in velvet and diamonds, and 
have a beautiful home and all the luxuries of life ; and drive 
to the theater every evening in a carriage of your own?” 

“Why, certainly,” I answered. “What woman would 
not?” 

“Well, you ought to have them; you are a jewel your- 
self — a ‘diamond of the first water’ — and you ought to have 
a beautiful setting — and you can have it — if you will it so.” 

“How?” I asked innocently. “I do not possess an ‘Alad- 
din’s lamp.” 

“I will give them to you,” he said, coming near me, and 
trying to take my hand in his. 


90 


LIFE-AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


“What do you mean?” I cried, springing up and evading 
his touch. 

“I mean, my darling, that I love you — and that if you will 
give yourself to me, I will heap on you all the riches and 
splendor of life.” 

“But I am too young to marry; besides I do not love 
you,” I said. He looked at me earnestly for a moment, and 
then he said, “Hilda, come here child and sit down by me; 
I want to tell you a very sad story, and then I want you to 
tell me what you think of it.” 

He had taken a seat on the sofa, and I went and sat by 
him, for anything sad always appealed, very strongly, to 
my heart. 

“Years ago, Hilda, there was a young man — a very 
young man — who met a beautiful woman, many years older 
than himself. The woman was gloriously beautiful, but 
she was very poor, having lost the wealth to which she had 
been accustomed from her birth, in some unfortunate spec- 
ulation. The young man was wealthy, and madly infatu- 
ated with the woman’s accursed beauty; and the woman — 
well! to make a long story short, she flattered the young 
man to the verge of imbecility — and he married her, to find 
himself bound to a woman ‘as beautiful as a Greek Psyche,’ 
as ‘heartless as a marble Diana,’ whose only god was gold. 
Hilda, think of it! a young man, scarcely nineteen years of 
age, with all his youthful passions rioting within him like 
the bounding sap in a young and vigorous tree, to be 
bound ‘until death do us part’ to a living iceberg — to a 
creature who was not a natural woman, since she was ut- 
terly devoid of nature’s gift of passion. This woman, who 
was a wife to her husband ‘in name only,’ soon returned to 
New York, where her mother lived; and her husband — the 
word is a mockery — sees her only when she comes to him 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


91 


for money. Now, tell me truly, does not your ‘pitying 
womanhood’ sorrow for such a man?” 

“It is very sad,” I said; and I tried to hide the tears that 
had gathered in my eyes. But he saw them, and leaning 
toward me, he said: “Ah, Hilda! your face is not nearly 
so beautiful as many I have seen, but you have a beautiful, 
beautiful heart — the kind of heart all women ought to have 
— affectionate, tender, loving. With you any man could 
be supremely happy.” 

(That was years ago, and I was very young and did not 
know the nature of man as I know it now. Perhaps my 
experience will be a warning to other ignorant, innocent, 
trusting women, and my advice to them is that given by 
an old gray-haired ‘preacher.’ He said to a crowd of 
women: “My dears, I am an old, old man now; my hair is 
like spun silver and my eyes like the stars seen through a 
mist; I have studied the world in general, and man in par- 
ticular, and I tell you, man — man — man — is the devil; be- 
ware of man!”) 

Another digression; but digressions are unavoidable. 

“Will you make me happy, Hilda!” he asked, trying to 
put his arm around me. 

. “But I told you once, that I do not love you; I hardly 
know you at all, and I have never thought of your wanting 
to marry me,” I said, after drawing away from him, and 
ensconcing myself safely on the other side of the table. 

“Hilda,” he said, holding out his arms to me and looking 
at me with pleading eyes, “I can not marry you, darling, 
for I am that unhappy man of whom I have just told you, 
but if you will come to my arms, I will shelter your life 
from every care and — ” 

“That is enough, sir,” I cried, while my eyes flashed, and 
my bosom heaved, and my whole form trembled with a 
mingling of suppressed emotions. “What have I done? 


92 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


Oh! what have I done to merit this? You would not have 
dared to insult me thus had you not known that I was a 
homeless, friendless orphan. And it is for this that you 
have pretended to like me, to treat me with kindness! This 
is what man’s friendship is worth. Thanks, for the lesson 
you have taught me.” And I swept by him. It was my 
first lesson that, “Life hath quicksands! Life hath snares.” 


CHAPTER XVL 


“Alas for the rarity 
Of Christian charity 
Under the sun/’ 

And now I was alone, face to face with the harrowing 
question, “What shall I do?” 

O God! pity every woman who is confronted with the 
necessity of earning a living, when that woman is destitute 
of the weapons with which to fight the battle of life. 

When one thinks of it, what a wonderful mystery it seems 
— that an utterly, unhappy human being should rack heart 
and brain to the very verge of insanity, in the desperate 
struggle to maintain in comfort, or at least in respectability, 
this worthless clay temple which in a few short years, at 
best, must be food for loathsome, creeping things. 

At last the question came to me, “Why not apply for a 
position in some private family, to do ‘light housework’ and 
‘plain sewing,’ or, if the worst comes to the worst — take a 
place as housemaid. There are numbers of ‘good women’ 
who would treat an intelligent, refined woman as ‘one of the 
family’ ; you have read a great deal about this servant prob • 
lem; now, try it for yourself. You can learn from experience 
if madames treat their servants with kindness and consider- 
ation. Why not try it?” 

Well, that question was answered for me, in a most 
prompt and unexpected manner — a manner that completely 
annihilated any wish or inclination to try the experiment. 
Early the next morning I was greatly surprised by a sum- 
mons to the sitting room — “a lady wished to see me.” I 

93 


94 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


went down, to find a lady whom I had known when I was 
a very little girl. She had come to New Orleans on a shop- 
ping expedition and thought I could be of great assistance 
to her, in making selection, as I had been a saleswoman 
and understood more about the value of things. 

About 1 1 o’clock she said, “Hilda, I have a relative living 
here, and I should like to see her; will you go with me?” 

“Certainly,” I replied, “Where does she live?” 

“I have her address here,” she said, consulting a card. 

“She is a dear, noble woman, and she has suffered a great 
misfortune, but she met it bravely, and in my eyes the is one 
of the nameless heroines of the earth.” 

“Tell me about her,” I said, always eager for anything 
romantic. 

“Well, as we have several blocks to walk yet, I will tell 
you as we go along.” 

“She is a cousin of mine, and is about your age. Some 
months ago her parents died, leaving her several hundred 
dollars. She was an only child and had been reared in 
the greatest comfort, not to say, luxury. Shortly after the 
death of her parents a relative of hers, who was about to be 
married, asked her to lend him the money to give him a 
start in a business which, he claimed, would make him a 
fortune. He told her he would pay her a good interest 
and she could get the money again whenever she wanted it. 
She loaned him the money, and, with woman’s proverbial 
ignorance in business matters, took no security. The man 
failed, and my cousin lost every cent. She had her choice 
of three evils — starvation, menial labor, or dishonor. She 
chose labor, although she knew but little about it; and so 
she is here — in a family; I do not know just what kind of 
work she does; but it is a servant’s work. She did not 
know enough to be a teacher, because her education was 
of that superficial, showy kind, which is, alas! too common 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


95 


among our girls, so she became a ‘servant,’ rather than fall 
‘like a snowflake from heaven to hell.’ And I want to visit 
her to show that I think no less of her for the independent 
spirit that made her choose honest labor to a beggarly 
sponging on her relatives, or to a life of ‘luxury and sin.’ ” 

“Here is the place,” she said, and in answer to her ring, 
a pompous footman opened the door, looked at us keenly 
for a moment as if undecided just what to do, then coming 
to some sudden conclusion, ushered us into a handsome 
room, begged us to be seated and politely informed us that 
“madam was out, but would be in directly;” then retreated 
with immense dignity. 

I do not know what my companion could have been 
thinking of, to allow the footman to make such an error, 
as our business was not with “madam.” However, both of 
us had every appearance of being ladies, and the footman 
judging us as such, and, perhaps, thinking we were some of 
madame’s rural friends, acted in accordance with his judg- 
ment. 

“Madame soon made her appearance, a beautiful, gra- 
cious matron, with the graceful courtesy of a princess. She 
looked at us, with one keen, swift glance, as she entered the 
room, and probably came to the conclusion that we were 
wealthy ladies from the country (for my companion was 
quite elegantly and correctly attired, and I was dressed 
in neat, girlish simplicity), and it would be policy to treat 
us nicely. 

With a little sweeping bow she quickly informed us that 

she had just returned from a meeting of Society, 

of which she was president. In a very few moments we 
gathered from her sweetly flowing words that she was a 
member of a great many societies — “for doing good.” 

As soon as my companion could collect herself sufii- 


96 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


ciently (for it took some courage), she informed ‘‘madame” 
that we wished to see Miss Blank. 

Heavens ! what a transformation ! 

This lady (?) this good, philanthropic, Christian woman, 
arose from her velvet cushion, her eyes aflame with indig- 
nation; her cold, cruel lips curled into a scornful curve; her 
whole form rigid, like “a viper frozen,” and said, with cut- 
ting, sarcastic precision, “It is my cook you wish to see.” 
“James” (as the footman appeared in answer to her ring), 
“show these persons around to the kitchen.” The two 
ladies, to whom she had been so gracious, had suddenly be- 
come (in her eyes) two “persons.” 

Miss Blank received us with blank astonishment. (I hum- 
bly beg a thousand pardons, no witticism was intended.) 
Her dark, sad eyes told their own pitiful story, and when 
we left her (after a half hour’s chat) my heart was aching 
with a new sorrow — the burden of another’s woe. 

“How would you like to occupy a position like hers?” my 
companion asked. 

“Excuse me,” I answered, with mock gayety, for I was 
determined to laugh away the silly tears. 

(I was young and foolish then, and quick to sympathize 
with the veriest stranger, in trouble. 

I have learned, since the days of my callow youth, that 
no one cares for my sympathy, and so I have withdrawn 
into myself, hardened my heart, and avoided my fellow - 
creatures. 

“Till a morbid hate and horror have grown 
Of a world in which I have hardly mixt. 

And a morbid, eating lichen fixt. 

On a heart half turned to stone.”) 


CHAPTER XVII. 


“A truthful page is childhood’s lovely face, 

Whereon sweet innocence has record made, 

An outward semblance of the young heart’s grace 

Where truth, and love, and trust are all portrayed.” 

“God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb,” (sometimes). 
The next day brought me an offer of a position as gov- 
erness. I was to teach four children the English branches 
— two of them music; amuse them after school hours (to 
relieve their dear mamma of their care and noise) “be wil- 
ling to make myself useful with the needle,” all for the 
princely (?) sum of eight dollars a month and a home, 
where I was to be “treated as one of the family.” 

Well, I was thankful to receive the crumbs that fell “from 
the rich man’s table,” but I found my life very sad and 
drear. Mrs. Blueblood was an impoverished daughter of 
one of the old ante-bellum sugar kings, but she still owned 
her “plantation,” on which she lived. We had no near 
neighbors, and “financial embarrassment,” together with 
old southern pride, prevented her partaking in any social 
pleasures. So month after month passed, in which I never 
exchanged a word with a young person, either male or fe- 
male, except the children I taught. Not a pleasant life 
for a young creature whose whole soul cried out, with an 
intensity that was exquisite torture, for the privilege of 
seeing something of the life of which she had read in 
novels. 

I tried to do my duty by the children entrusted to my 
97 


7 


98 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


care. I taught them their lessons, preached them little 
sermons when they were naughty, and amused them as best 
I could; but I was not a very gay companion for children. 
Indeed, when my great sorrow first fell upon me, I thought 
I should be like that king, who ‘‘never smiled again.’’ But 
children are funny little things, and I used often to catch 
myself smiling at their mischievous tricks and queer say- 
ings. 

One evening, as I sat by my open window watching the 
red streaks still hovering “over Orion’s grave, low down 
in the west,” thinking sadly of the early blight that had 
fallen so heavily on my young, joyless life, and looking 
forward to the dreary, unknown future, with a sickening 
dread, I heard childish voices right beneath my window 
“deep in dispute.” 

“I know this is a picture of ‘calico animals, ’cause Miss 
Hilda told me twuz,” said the little girl, who was about six 
years old. 

“Calico animals! — c-a-l-i-c-o animals!” cried the voice 
of a boy in great scorn. “Who ever heard of ‘Calico an- 
imals’?” 

(The boy was a year or two older than his sister, and 
thought himself very wise, and that girls weren’t “in it.”) 

“Well, I know that’s what Miss Hilda called ’em, an’ 
she knows — ’cause she knows everything,” replied the little 
girl. 

“Hiss Hilda didn’t call ’em calico animals; she called ’em 
domestic animals — heh! heh! heh! — booby!” cried the ex- 
asperating small boy. 

“O-h-h-h! yes, that’s whut she called um, but you needn’ 
be so mean about it, you old ugly thing.” 

And after a fleeting smile I fell to wondering why chil- 
dren should quarrel so much among themselves. 

Years have passed since then, but the “wonder” is with 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


99 


me yet, for in spite of all that the poets say to the contrary, 
my observation is that in nine homes out of ten the chil- 
dren are unkind and peevish to each other — calling each 
other ugly names, quarreling over trifles, and otherwise 
marring “childhood’s lovely face,” “where truth and love 
and trust are all (sometimes not) portrayed.” 

Such things should not be. There is something wrong 
somewhere. Is it the fault of the mothers who train them, 
or is it the fault of the mothers who trained their mothers, 
and so on back to Eve — the first mother of all? 


CHAPTER XVIIL 


“Fate orders these things by her will, not by ours! 

Mankind is the sport of invisible powers.” 

About eight months had dragged themselves away since 
Warner Graham and I had parted in such unrelenting pride, 
and I was again in New Orleans, but only for a day; I was 
on my way to a distant city to take a position as teacher 
in a fine female college. 

Having decided to spend the morning in “shopping,” and 
taking a look at old familiar objects, I was sauntering along 
leisurely, when who should I meet but Warner’s mother! 

She recognized me, held out her hand, smiled and said: 

“Why, how do you do, Hilda? I am glad to see you. 
When did you arrive? And how long will you be in the 
city?” 

I answered all her questions, and then she said: “Come 
go home with me, child; I should like to have you with me 
again ; somehow I cannot help feeling a great liking for you, 
and I am getting old now, and may never see you again.” 

For a moment I hesitated, but she looked at me and said: 

“Let the dead past bury its dead. Warner is my son, but 
he is not worthy of you, and he would not have made you 
happy.” (My hungry, aching heart bled inwardly as the 
rapid thought flashed through my mind: “But I loved him; 
I don’t care if he is unworthy of me, I would have risked 
my happiness with him.”) “And, anyway,” she continued, 
“your quarrel and his need not affect our friendship; so 
come, Hilda, I shall take no refusal.” And I thrust aside 
my hesitation and went with her. 


100 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


lOI 


After spending an hour with her I arose to go, saying I 
had a few small purchases I wished to make before train 
time. 

“Well, when you have finished,^’ Mrs. Graham said, 
“come back to me; I will have luncheon ready, and then I 
will drive you to the depot in my new phaeton.” 

As I could frame no reason for not accepting her kind- 
ness, I promised to return. 

Strange! but something — some trivial matter (or perhaps 
it was Fate) detained me far beyond the hour I had named 
for my return. As I came within view of the house I saw a 
familiar figure just turning the corner. My heart begun 
to beat with such violent rapidity that I closed my eyes for 
an instant and threw out my hand like one walking in a 
dark room. (I had always imagined that if I should ever 
meet Warner Graham face to face I would surely faint.) 
When I opened my eyes the retreating figure was lost in the 
crowd. 

As soon as I entered the house Mrs. Graham met me 
and said, with some agitation in her voice: “Warner has 
just this moment left; he took me quite by surprise, as 1 
was not expecting him; he ran in just about two minutes 
after you left the house, and said he could spend only a 
half-hour with me, as he was in the city only for one day 
on some very important business. But when I told him you 
were here, that you had gone out to purchase a ‘few trifles’ 
and would be back directly, he said he should like to see 
you, and waited for you two hours ; then, as his business was 
very pressing, he could wait no longer, but he told me he 
would return just as soon as possible.” 

I listened with as much indifference of manner as polite- 
ness permitted, determined not to exhibit any anxiety to sec 
him; but I could have screamed, in my agony, and my heart 
silently cried out against the cruelty of Fate for denying me 


102 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


the pleasure of that meeting. What fiendish, “invisible 
power” could have induced me to spend the precious mo- 
ments idly chatting, perhaps, with some one who cared 
nothing for me, and for whom I cared nothing — when War- 
ner was waiting to see me? Oh! why hadn’t some good 
angel whispered to me to hurry back with flying feet? Oh, 
the irony of Fate — the hollow, cruel mockery of Fate!” I 
made no sign, but my “heart wept tears of blood.” 

I remained in the house all the rest of the afternoon, leav- 
ing myself barely time to catch my train, but he did not 
come. 

As the train begun to steam out from the station I saw 
an eager figure hurrying up, jostling the crowd right and 
left in a futile effort to get near enough to speak. He waved 
his hand at me and smiled — but in my stony grief and bitter 
disappointment I looked straight into his eyes with blank 
unrecognition of him or his salute and made no sign; then 
the train whirled on, and 

“Two lives that once part are as ships that divide 
When, moment on moment, there rushes between 
The one and the other, a sea: — 

Ah, never can fall from the days that have been 
A gleam on the years that shall be.” 


CHAPTER XIX. 


“We are puppets, man in his pride, and beauty fair in her 
flower ; 

Do we move ourselves, or are we moved by an unseen 
hand at a g^ame 

That pushes us off from the board, and others ever suc- 
ceed?” 

During my stay at the college only one incident came into 
my life worthy of mention — an incident that helped to con- 
firm my opinion of life. One morning, as we sat at break- 
fast, a note was handed to the “President.” He perused it 
carefully, then rapped on the table for “attention.” 

“Young ladies and teachers,” he said, and his usually calm 
firm voice quivered just a little, “I have here a note. It is 
written by a man, who is ^condemned to hang’ this morn- 
ing. He writes an urgent request that I should come to 
see him, a short while before the execution, and bring my 
teachers and all the young ladies; that he especially wishes 
to speak to the young ladies. It is now 8 130 (consulting his 
watch); all who wish to gratify the last request of a man 
so soon to die, meet me in the chapel at 9 o’clock, sharp.” 

Of course we went — all of us. 

The condemned man walked up on the “platform” of the 
scaffold, guarded on either side by the usual attendants. 
He stood before the crowd, his pale face brave and unflinch- 
ing. He calmly and quietly surveyed the group of fresh 
young faces, momentarily saddened by the thought of the 
awful death awaiting a fellow-creature. 

103 


104 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


As he looked a hush fell on the crowd ; the stillness was so 
intense it seemed to be painful — too painful to be long 
borne. When the silence was at its height (if one may use 
such a figure) he spoke. Looking down at the group of 
upturned, flower-like faces, he said: “Young ladies, look 
at me, a wretch doomed to die an ignominious death; only 
one short half hour more, and this body, now so full of 
life and warmth, will be as lifeless, as inanimate as that 
soulless earth now pressed by your dainty feet. 

Do you wonder why I sent for you? Do you wonder 
why I should wish to have your pure, innocent eyes rest 
upon such a pitiful sight? I will tell you why, and I hope 
my story will be a warning that will save some fair young 
life from shame and poverty and degradation ; and, perhaps, 
some brother from a death like mine. 

“Young ladies, I had a sister — an only sister — the joy of 
my widowed mother, and the pleasure and pride of my life. 
I loved her as a sister is seldom loved, and I was proud of 
her, for she was beautiful and brilliant. One day, fate threw 
in her way, one of those handsome devils, so accurately 
painted by the talented, but wicked, Byron, and she pledged 
him her troth without the consent or knowledge of her 
mother, or the brother who loved her better than he loved 
his own life. 

“As soon as we discovered the truth of her bethrothal, we 
made inquiries concerning the man, and ascertained, beyond 
the shadow of a doubt, that he was a character of the basest 
sort. A handsome face is no index to the soul within. 

“My mother pleaded, persuaded, commanded, did every- 
thing that a mother’s heart could suggest, to prevent the 
marriage, and I used every art within the knowledge of 
man to dissuade my sister from the fatal step, but she was 
wilful, imperious, headstrong, and would listen to nothing. 
She said, even if her lover possessed all the faults he was 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


105 


accused of, he would abandon them, once she was his wife; 
that he loved her so truly, so devotedly, he would reform for 
her sake. Young ladies, women never trusted to a sadder 
fallacy. Never put your faith in such a hope; if you do, 
you will live to find it but ashes and dust. 

“I will not detain you with the heart-rending details. 
But in three short weeks after the marriage he beat her, 
beat my sister, my proud, beautiful, delicate sister, who had 
never, in all her sweet, young life, felt the touch of an un- 
kind stroke on her dainty, tender flesh. The shock and 
excitement nearly killed her, and my mother, hearing of her 
illness, forgave her as mothers will, and went, to nurse her. 
I was not at home when it happened, but as soon as I heard 
of it I started out for the home of my sister, intending to 
persuade her to come back to us, and let us get a divorce 
for her, and protect her from such a brute. 

“Just as I neared the house I saw a man stagger through 
the door; I heard my sister’s voice give one shriek like a 
human in mortal agony; I heard a dull, heavy thud, like 
the falling of a dead body on the floor, and as I rushed into 
the room, I saw the dastadly cur kick my mother’s prostrate 
body. I saw a pool of blood on the floor at my mother’s 
side — I knew it was my mother’s blood — and I thought 
he had killed her. O God! I was no longer a man, I was 
no longer a human being; I was a demon from hell. I 
sprang upon that cowardly creature, that brute in man’s 
form, and, young ladies, I k-i-l-l-e-d h-i-m! 

“Today, within an hour, I pay the penalty of that crime. 
Was it a crime to rid the earth of such a monster? 

“Well, I am a man, and I will meet my fate bravely; Char- 
lotte Corday and Beatrice Cenci and many other women 
have suffered just such a death and met it without fear. 
And now, young ladies, one warning I leave with you, from 
the mouth of the grave: never run away from a mother’s 


io6 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


love to the love of any man. Man’s love, at best, is but 
a frail and delicate flower, withering in a day. One other 
warning I have for you, then life and I must part. You will 
be patient with me today, remembering it is my last on earth. 
Even these stern officers are kind and patient, and have 
granted me the privilege of this long talk, knowing how 
earnestly I desire to do some good in dying. I cannot 
know that my words will save one of you from a single 
pang of sorrow, but I will leave my warning with you, trust- 
ing to Him who watcheth even the fall of a sparrow, to make 
it sink deep into your hearts and bring forth its fruit in due 
season. 

“Twenty-five years ago, a woman knelt by the bedside of 
a dying infant and poured out to God a rebellious prayer. 

“The woman was young — scarcely more than a child her- 
self — and she told God, she could not, she would not live, if 
He took from her her precious baby. She cried out in her 
anguish that she could not give him up, that if her darling 
died she would kill herself ; that if God would only spare her 
boy she would pay any price, even the price of her soul. 

“I was that baby boy. Do you think my poor, rebellious 
mother would have agonized with God, to spare the life of 
her child, if she could have foreseen the awful tragedy of 
today, when hundreds of idle, gaping, curious men and 
women will push and jostle each other in the maddened 
effort to see the ‘brutal criminal’ — her son — swung out into 
eternity? 

“When the white-robed angels hovered over that pure, 
innocent babe, waiting to bear him away and lay him in 
Jesus’ bosom, would that mother have implored God to 
spare his life, that she might give him up today, an unwilling 
sacrifice to her country’s outraged laws? 

“My dear young ladies, I stand here before you today, 
and I beseech you to remember my terrible fate, and, re- 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


107 


membering it, be true to yourselves, be true to your nobler 
womanhood, and willingly submit that your lives may be 
subject to the guidance of Him who gave it you. 

“I have finished. God bless you, one and all, for gratify- 
ing the wish of a condemned criminal. 

“Do not stay to see me hanged, but go back to your 
books, and other duties, and when you pray, remember this 
hour, and ask God to grant that none of you may ever be 
instrumental in dooming a man to such a fate.’' 

Ah! Never shall I forget that day. Poets tell us the world 
is full of joy, and perhaps it is for those who are good, and 
well ofif, and have lots of friends and no troubles. But, oh, 
the misery, the tears, the heart aches borne by one-half the 
world, that the other half knows not of. None, save God, 
can ever know how many human beings are “Steeped to the 
lips in misery.” Our only comfort is to 

“Let our unceasing, earnest prayer 
Be, too, for light, for strength to bear 
Our portion of the weight of care. 

That crushes into dumb despair 
One-half the human race.” 


CHAPTER XX. 


“Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in pass- 
ing, 

Only a signal shewn, and a distant voice in the darkness; 
So on the ocean of life we pass and speak one another. 
Only a look and a voice, then darkness again and a silence.” 

When vacation, came I went home with one of the young 
teachers who had taken quite a fancy to me, and knowing 
the dread I had of spending even a few weeks under the 
same roof with the man who had been my step-father, she 
would take no refusal. Ruthie Delamar (my young friend) 

had a very nice uncle, Paul Delamar, who came to K 

to be present at the “commencement” exercises, and to ac- 
company Ruthie home. He advised us to make the trip 
by water, as it would be pleasanter traveling by boat than 
in hot, “stuffy cars.” 

At Cincinnati we took passage on one of those large, 
“floating palaces,” which, at that time, plied the waters of 
the grand old Mississippi River. 

The weather was so dreadfully hot and sultry it was im- 
possible to “keep to the ‘ladies’ cabin.’ ” Even at night we 
could not endure the heat of the “state rooms” until hours 
after the sun had disappeared, like a great, golden stemless 
sunflower, drawn down and out of sight by unseen hands. 
All the young people kept to “the guards,” all during the 
day and half the night. 

The boat was literally crowded with passengers. Ah! 
how quickly strangers become acquainted under such cir- 
cumstances — such close companionship. Six days it took 

io8 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


109 


to make the trip, and during that time we were like one large 
family, then we parted, many of us, to meet no more. “So 
on the ocean of life we pass and speak one another.” And 
the “speaking” was very pleasant while it lasted. The 
memory of that trip is one of the most cherished things 
long stored away in the attic of my brain. 

During the day we sat around in groups, chatting, laugh- 
ing, joking, enjoying the river breeze, the motion of the 
boat, the music of the waves — everything. At night we had 
music and dancing, for on board was a magnificent brass 
band, a charming feature, and one which' added immensely 
to the pleasure of the trip. (Even into my life fall little 
gleams of sunshine “now and then.”) Although I did not 
participate in the dancing, I enjoyed watching the dancers, 
listening to the music and chatting with “congenial spirits.” 

Between the dances we watched the passing scenery, 
made misty and weird through the silvery moonlight, or 
listened to some pathetic story, recalled to the narrator 
by some* passing incident. On one occasion we saw in 
the near distance a party of young men and maidens taking 
a moonlight ride, in one of those little boats we call a skiff. 
As we passed the pleasure party, a girl at my side clasped 
her little white hands and gave a long, shuddering sigh. 

“What’s the matter?” I asked. 

“Oh, I can never bear to see people in a skiff since that 
dreadful accident in which a dear friend of mine was 
drowned; do you not remember seeing an account in the 
papers of the drowning of Mr. Day?” 

“Yes,” I answered, “but I did not know the young man, 
and one reads of so many horrible accidents.” 

“Ah! but when one knows the victims, and my own dear 
brother was one of the party; he barely saved his life by 
clinging to the skiff, which struck him a cruel blow in the 
forehead as it came up, rendering him almost senseless. 


no 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


Oh, this old river is a treacherous friend ! It has iinder-ciir- 
rents and eddies and whirlpools, and before one is aware of 
danger, the frail boat is caught as if by giant fingers and 
dragged down, down, down; then thrown back to the sur- 
face, robbed of its human freight. Mr. Day did not realize 
the treachery of this mighty river, and, notwithstanding the 
advice and warning of his companions, he rowed the skiff 
too near to one of those small maelstroms; the boat was 
drawn in, capsized, and the poor young man paid the penalty 
of his rashness with his own life. He was an only son — the 
joy and pride and hope of a gray-haired father. When the 
sad news fell, like a thunderbolt, on that aged father, he went 
mad ; he rushed to the river-bank, and for hours and hours, 
all that night and all the next day, he roved up and down 
by the water’s edge, calling to the senseless, unheeding deep 
‘to give him back his boy.’ They ‘dragged’ for the body, 
but it was never found; it was doubtless swept out to the 
great, boundless Gulf, where his bones are now whitening 
among the seaweed and the coral. Oh, it is so terrible! 
I cannot bear to think of it — not even a grave, to be watered 
by a father’s tears.” 

“Ah, well!” I said, soothingly (for she was a timid crea- 
ture), “the atoms can be found there just as readily as 
though they were in a more narrow resting-place, and the 
poor boy’s sleep will be all the deeper, methinks, for being 
always lulled by the music of the waves among the rocks 
and caverns.” And then our thoughts were diverted from 
their sadness, by a startled voice crying out, “What is that?” 

Looming up in the distance, we saw a huge, monster-like 
shape. 

“A ‘raft,’ ” some one said, and as it floated nearer we heard 
men’s voices singing an old plantation song, in negro dialect. 
How sweet and strange and weird it sounded, wafted to us 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


Ill 


over the surface of the water, in the stillness of that evening 
hour. 

Day after day our boat glided serenely along, pass- 
ing other boats, whose passengers waved and cheered. The 
majestic river grew broader and broader. One day, as we 
were nearing our journey’s end, and a group of us sat 
dreamily watching the ever varying pictures which pre- 
sented themselves to us, in wide sweeps of cornland, vast 
fields of waving sugar cane, that looked like seas of emerald 
green, grand old Southern plantations, and, here and there, 
a river town, a little incident occurred which furnished the 
comedy to our drama. 

Among the passengers- was a handsome young dude, who 
seemed to admire “Miss Hilda” as much as it is in the 
nature of an egotist to admire any one save his own Ego. 
He was always in our group, under one pretext or another. 
On the occasion of which I speak, this pretty dude — this 
pretty specimen of that genus which Carlyle classes as “two- 
legged animals without feathers,” and “forked radishes with 
heads fantastically carved,” and “omnivorous bipeds that 
wear breeches;” this specimen of that class of beings, which 
is better known to the world as men, came swaggering into 
our midst, with a most self-satisfied smirk on his Antinous- 
like face, and a shallow speech on his full, red, sensuous 
lips. 

There happened to be no vacant seat near us, excepting 
some immovable object (which necessitated whoever occu- 
pied it sitting with the back to me), and a small stool at my 
side, on which lay a book I had thought of reading, and 
on which my hand rested. 

I noticed that he cast a longing glance at the stool, but 
I pretended not to see it, and did not remove my hand. 
Thinking to punish me, he sat down on the “immovable ob- 


II2 LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 

ject” with his back to me, saying in his most grandiloquent 
tones, “Miss Beverly, pray excuse my back.” 

“Why, certainly; it is better looking than your face,” I 
answered flippantly, never dreaming that any one would con- 
sider it witty, to answer him in the time-worn, foolish ex- 
pression. Imagine my surprise, when I glanced up, to see 
a middle-aged gentleman silently clapping his hands and 
shaking with half suppressed laughter. Then he drew a 
small note book and pencil from his pocket, and rapidly 
jotted down something; after which he replaced them in his 
pocket, and continued, at intervals, to look toward the 
young dude and laugh. 

I never understood what the old gentleman meant, for 
there was certainly nothing smart in the speech itself. I 
can only suppose that the handsome young fellow had con- 
ducted himself in such a manner as to impress the other 
passengers that he was a conceited fop, who needed “taking 
down” a little. The “young fellow” pretended to be very 
much “hurt” at my speech, and though I was always so 
tender-hearted that I hated to wound the feelings of any 
one, I equally hated an ultra-conceited man (for all men 
are conceited to some extent). We were almost at our 
journey’s end. It was our last evening; we stood on the 
guards saying our good-bys, but feeling them to be “fare- 
wells.” And as we stood waiting, “the light of a trailing 
meteor shot through the purple night,” and some one senti- 
mentally compared it to our parting, and fast vanishing 
friendships. 

At last the internal machinery of the great steamboat 
groaned and labored, the black smoke escaped the smoke- 
stacks, in huge, dense volumes, the water at her sides was 
churned into a frothing, seething mass, she stood still, while 
“deck hands” let down the “stage plank,” the captain gave 
orders, the “mate” swore, and the passengers ran hither and 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


113 

thither, gathering up countless packages, and uttering hur- 
ried last good-bys. 

In three-quarters of an hour I found myself in Ruthie’s 
home, receiving a hearty welcome from Ruthie’s mamma. 
The house and all its surroundings gave many evidences 
of that luxury which belonged to the Southern aristocracy 
in the old ante-bellum days. 

There is no need to chronicle the details of those quiet, 
calm months spent with my dear friend. She had a com- 
fortable home and knew how to be a perfect hostess, never 
making the mistake of being obtrusively attentive, yet 
never neglecting her guest; but always giving ample oppor- 
tunity for freedom and privacy. 

I was allowed to indulge, to my heart’s content, in my 
favorite pleasure and pastime — reading. I used to spend 
hours, alone in the great library, cuddled up in a big, 
cushioned chair, or lying among the luxurious sofa pillows, 
reading my favorite authors and building air castles, or 
dreaming sweet, idle day dreams of the time when I, too, 
might be an author. 

One day as I lay concealed by silken draperies, reading 
“Sartor Resartus,” I became very drowsy; not that I found 
the book uninteresting, but because I had sat up nearly all 
the previous night in my anxiety to finish “Daniel De- 
ronda.” 

Finally I laid my book aside, snuggled up into a com- 
fortable little bundle, and went fast asleep. I began to 
dream, not of Teufelsdrokh and his one unhappy love “verg- 
ing towards insanity,”" but of Fatima; I dreamed that I was 
Fatima, and that my lover was grandly tall, with beautiful 
auburn curls, and grave, blue eyes. I was thinking of him, 
as I was always doing, and repeating to myself those beau- 
tiful lines from Tennyson: 


8 


14 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


“Last night, when some one spoke his name, 

From my swift blood that went and came 
A thousand little shafts of flame 
Were shivered in my narrow frame. 

0 love, O fire! once he drew 

With one long kiss my whole soul through 
My lips, as sunlight drinketh dew.” 

1 will possess him or die.’ 

And then my eyes flew open, and I heard masculine 
voices in the room, not three feet from where I was hidden. 

Before I had had sufficient time to collect my wits and 
make my presence known, I heard a voice, which I recog- 
nized as that of a young man whom I had met several times 
at the home of one of Ruthie’s friends. 

He was saying: “I tell you, Paul, I am in a devil of a 
scrape, and I’ve come to you, old fellow, to help me out, as 
you used to do when we were at school together. 

“Women are always at the bottom of a man’s troubles, 
and they are a damned queer lot. Two years ago I fell in 
love with a married woman — a woman whose husband was 
not true to her, and who often remained away from her, for 
months at a time. She knew that he spent those months 
with ‘scarlet women,’ and that knowledge killed her love 
for him. I was an old acquaintance of the family, and I 
used to spend the evenings with her, and sometimes ac- 
company her to the opera or theater. She was a sweet 
woman, Paul, a charming, fascinating woman, and I found 
myself deeply infatuated with her before I realized the 
danger of our association. In an evil hour I determined to 
make her love me, and to make her mine. Well, a man 
has to have his wits about him to succeed in seducing a good 
woman, for, let the world say what it will, there are num- 
bers and numbers of good, pure women who have fallen 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


115 

from honor for the love of some man. Of course, when a 
good woman falls from honor, it is generally because fate 
has erected some impassable barrier to lawful wedlock. But 
there is not a woman on God’s earth who is strong enough 
to resist the man she loves, if that man knows how to ‘storm 
the citadel’ ; but the betrayal of a good woman requires tact, 
in fact, it is an art, and like all arts, demands a prodigious 
amount of study to bring it to perfection, and to insure suc- 
cess.” 

‘‘Merciful God,” I said to myself, as I lay there, stunned 
into a sort of insensibility by the awful shock of such a hide- 
ous revelation, “Is it possible that a man can be such a fiend 
as to deliberately go to work to betray a good woman? Are 
there not enough of the ‘evil ones’ to satisfy man’s wicked 
lust?” 

Hardly had I finished thinking the above, when I heard 
Paul Delamar’s calm, grave voice saying quietly: “I think 
you are mistaken, Marsdon, and I hope you are, for I have 
the dearest little niece on earth, and I would hate to think 
that her honor and virtue lay at the mercy of an unscrupu- 
lous man.” 

“Well, of course, that’s what you think, old boy, because 
you know, you are a sort of modern King Arthur; but take 
my word for it, all women are Guineveres. At least, that 
has been my experience, as well as the experience of num- 
bers of other men who have had too great a fondness for the 
‘fair ones.’ ” 

“Marsdon, I wish you would not speak of women in that 
light manner. I do not like to hear it,” Paul said, coldly. 

“Oh, shut up, Paul, and don’t be a ‘prig,’ and above all, 
don’t try to set yourself up for a saint and a model of 
morality. I am in trouble and I want to tell you all about 
it. And, hang it! I have often puzzled my brain to try to 
find out what strange, mysterious power draws me to you. 


LIFE— AS FULDA FOUND IT. 


ii6 

and makes me like you in spite of myself. I suppose it is 
something on the principle of ‘negative and positive forces.’ 
But I am kind of muddled in my knowledge of natural 
philosophy. I dare say, if I had spent a little more time 
in the study of that science, and much less in the study of 
women, I would have been saved many a devilish scrape. 
But what I want you to tell me now is, what am I going to 
do about this married woman who loves me and whom I 
loved, up to a few weeks ago?” 

‘‘You see, it is this way. For fourteen months I have been 
trying to persuade her to give herself to me — heart, soul and 
body. She has always said that her heart and soul are mine, 
but that she could not give herself to me in any other way 
than by honorable marriage ; and claims that she loves rrte so 
madly she is willing to brave the publicity of a divorce court 
for my sake. But I was not willing to endure the scandal 
such a proceeding would have produced, and besides, I did 
not really care to marry; taking a wife is burdening one’s 
self with a great responsibility. But two weeks ago I met a 
girl whom I loved at first sight, and I intend to make 
her my wife. The only thing that troubles me now, is the 

fear that Mrs. will betray me and give me trouble, 

and I want to rid myself of her as soon as possible.” 

“Well, Marsdon,” said Paul, in his slow, deliberate tones, 
“that is a hard thing to do, I have always heard said. When 
a woman loses her honor for the sake of a man, she clings to 
him with a fearful tenacity, born of her cruel punishment and 
hopeless despair — and who can blame her?” 

“Oh, it is not so bad as you think. Mrs. has never 

really lost her honor, but she loves me, and I know that I 
should have succeeded at last in subjecting her will to mine. 
Just let me read you this letter I received from her four 
weeks ago, in answer to a note I wrote her, asking if she 
could receive me that evening.” 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


117 


“I would rather you would not read it to me, Marsdon,” 
I heard Paul say, “for the woman trusted you so fully, she 
believed you would be true to her and guard her secret.” 

“Oh, come now, my good fellow, you don’t know Mrs. 

, and you are not likely ever to know her, and I am 

bound to tell my trouble to somebody; if you will not give 
me your sympathy, I will go to some fellow who will, and, 
perhaps, he cannot keep the secret as you can, but will tell 
it, and then see what harm you will be doing a woman.” 

“Well, Marsdon, if you will trust the secret out of your 
own keeping, I suppose I may as well listen; but I tell you 
frankly, I do not like anything of the kind. A man has no 
right to expose the woman who loves and trusts him, to 
any human being.” 

“I will read the letter to you, Paul, then you can judge 
for yourself of how matters stand.” 

“Oh! where is the confounded letter? I thought I had 
it here in my pocket. Yes, here it is: 

“‘My dear Marsdon: — You ask me if you can come to 
see me this evening and spend another hour in paradise. 
Oh, Marsdon! if this is paradise, the trail of the serpent is 
here. You may come this time, but I wish you would never 
make such a request of me again, for if you ask me to let 
you come, I cannot say you nay, and yet my conscience 
cries' out against it, and tells me how wrong it is. Truly, 
truly, “Conscience doth make cowards of us all;” and mine 
gives me no peace; it scourges me all the time, in dreaming 
or waking. But I love you so! I love you so! I can not 
deny myself the poor, little, pitiful pleasure of having you 
with me for an hour; of listening to your dear voice, whose 
every accent is, to me, a sweet and gentle caress; of letting 
you hold my weak little hand in your great, strong, master- 
ful one. ’ Dear Marsdon, I know that I sin in loving you, 
but don’t you think there are circumstances in my poor life 


ii8 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


that vindicate me a little — ^just a little? Oh, darling^! please 
tell me that you do not despise me, that you do not feel 
contempt for me; that you do not loathe me for my weak- 
ness and my folly. Oh, Marsdon! think what a dreadful 
thing it is for a woman like me to make the fatal mistake 
of marrying a man who does not love her, who has never 
loved her, who forsakes her for months and months, spend- 
ing the time in other cities with other loves. Oh, no! I will 
not call it “other loves;” to do so is to degrade love — to de- 
grade myself. But I was left here to live this lonely, deso- 
late, loveless life, utterly devoid of all that makes a woman’s 
happiness. And oh-h! I long for tenderness, for sympathy, 
for sweet companionship — all so dear to a woman’s heart, 
so necessary to a woman’s life. Oh, it is maddening, and 
under it I grow almost desperate, almost reckless! 

“ ‘But, dearest, if I let you come, you must have pity on 
me; you must not tempt me as you have done in the past; 
you must be strong, and you must help me to be brave and 
strong. I am only a weak, loving woman, and don’t you 
know, my darling, that it is a cowardly act for a man to shift 
all the responsibility of resisting evil, upon the woman? Ah, 
me! I wonder if — but I will not worry you with my grief. 
Only promise me that you will never again try to tempt me 
into considering “All for love and the world well lost.” 
When you are with me and I am listening to your pleas, 
your reasoning, everything seems so different to what it 
really is. Wrong seems right; sin seems bereft of half its 
hideousness. You tell me that love makes all things right, 
that it is the gift of God and nothing to be ashamed of, and 
I believe it — while you are with me. But when you are 
gone my better judgment whispers to me: “Do not believe 
his sophistries.” Oh, I am so miserable! My reason tells 
me that what you offer me is not love, but my eager, hungry 
heart refuses to listen to reason, and persists in clinging to 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


1 19 

that base semblance of love, from which every woman's 
soul ought to shrink with horror and disgust. 

“ ‘Oh, Marsdon, you ought to know by now that I am not 
a “bad woman,” a wanton, a prostitute, a courtesan, or 
what-you-will, the name is of little consequence; you know 
what I mean; and you know that I have never lived a life 
of shame, and that I will never consent to live such a life. 
Then why do you not go away from me and leave me to 
my loneliness and my heartache, or else offer to make our 
love honorable in the sight of God and the world ?‘' 

“ ‘I wish to God I had never seen you. I wish — 
but what is the use of crying out like a hitrt child? 
When you are not near me with your magnetic influence 
over my heart and brain I can reason it all out very calmly, 
and my brain seems cool and analytical; but when you are 
with me — oh, Marsdon, I go mad, and my brain grows hot 
and passionate, like my hot and passionate heart; and yet, I 
can not refuse to let you come; when you ask me in that 
pleading way. You may come just this once more, and may 


God forgive us both. Your poor, weak, loving 

“Now, Paul, what do you think of it?” 

After a long silence, or what seemed to me an intermin- 
able pause, Paul Delamar said, in a voice graver than usual : 

“Well, Marsdon, I think I should have burned off my 
right hand, rather than have read such a letter as that to 
any human being. To me it is like one long cry of agony, 
wrung from the heart of a woman whose soul lies quivering 
under the lashings of an outraged conscience.” 

“Pshaw, Paul! your notions are too hifalutin. But does 
not that letter prove the statements I made? That pure, 
good women fall from honor for ‘love’s sweet sake;' and 
that no woman can continue to hold out against the man 
she loves?” 


120 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


“It is quite evident, from that letter, that one woman has 
continued ‘to hold out against the man she loves,’ ” Paul 
said. 

“It is only a matter of time and opportunity. You can 
readily imagine that things have gone pretty far, when a 
woman writes like that. The truth is, I have held her in 
my arms ; I have lain with my head upon her bosom ; I have 
kissed her throat, her face, her lips, and yet, whenever I have 
pleaded for other proofs of love, she has always recoiled with 
affright. She is one of those women from whom a man 
would never be able to extract a consent to evil.” 

“Then, upon what grounds do you base your belief that 
no woman is strong enough to resist the man she loves, 
since you admit that this one has resisted you?” 

“Thus far, my friend. But I tell you, Paul, if I chose to 
pursue the game any longer, you would see that I have not 
studied the subject in vain.” 

“As I told you before, a man has need to have his wits 
about him; then he must have opportunities, and then, he 
must play his cards well, and after he has ingratiated him- 
self into the woman’s favor, under the guise of kindness and 
friendship, he has need to proceed cautiously and carefully, 
until he has secured a firm foothold in her heart. He may 
then begin to plead for little ‘proofs of love;’ assuring her 
that no wrong shall be done; that there is no sin, no harm 
in loving. After he has once succeeded in getting her to 
commit herself, by allowing ‘little privileges,’ the rest is 
easy enough, for when a good woman takes one downward 
step she feels that there is no turning back for her; that 
she has ‘crossed the river and burned her bridges behind 
her.’ When she has once compromised herself, thus plac- 
ing herself in your power, then snatch your pleasure at all 
hazards.” 

“Your theory seems quite perfect in all its details, but it 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


I2I 


strikes me you have failed to prove it infallible,” Paul re- 
plied, in cold, sarcastic tones. 

“Yes, I will admit that thus far I have been baffled in 
this one instance; but I was all the more determined to suc- 
ceed, until I met another woman whose lovely face has made 
me lose all interest in the ‘old love.’ ” 

“Well, Stanley Marsdon, I should think you would be 
ashamed to acknowledge, with such brutal candor, that you 
are capable of degrading your manhood to such a des- 
picable extent as to practice luring ‘good women’ into paths 
of sin, which, as you must know, can only lead to the de- 
struction of their souls. If you must live an evil, impure 
life, why not seek your companions from among those 
women who are not ‘good women?’ ” 

“Pooh ! it isn’t one-half the pleasure, my boy. Don’t you 
know that a hunter enjoys the excitement of a hot chase 
a thousand times more than he does an easy conquest? 
Come, old fellow, you are too ascetic; you ought to join 
the priesthood,” said the young roue. 

“I am no saint, Marsdon, neither do I claim, to be a 
model of morality, but, thank God, I can truthfully say I 
have never tried to tempt any woman into sin. I am not 
much of a ‘religionist’ as religion goes, but I cannot help 
believing that God meant for man to be governed by the 
same moral law that governs woman. And men have no 
right to expect and require women to live pure, unsullied 
lives, and claim for themselves the privilege of indulging 
that passion, which is nature’s gift to woman as well as man. 
I do not know that I shall ever marry, but if I should, I 
would want to marry a woman whose life was pure and vir- 
tuous; and I shall give to her what I expect from her, God 
helping me.” 

“Oh, pshaw, Paul! What’s the use of a fellow denying 
himself pleasures, when it is not required of him? Depend 


122 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


upon it, my friend, women would be every bit as self in- 
dulgent as men, if society permitted it,” was the coarse 
reply. 

“Society is an abomination. It should require of men 
what it requires of women. It should punish men as it 
punishes women. If men had to suffer for breaking the 
seventh commandment as women suffer for that sin, there 
would be a great falling off in the number of ‘betrayed 
women,’ for men are so selfish they would never be willing 
to pay such a price of agony for their self-indulgence. ‘All 
for love and the world well lost’ is a doctrine that only 
women are loving and unselfish enough to practice,” Paul 
Delamar made answer. (And I felt that I could love and 
honor him for that answer.) 

“Paul Delamar, you are one man in five thousand; but 
you can’t reform the world, so don’t chuck a whole month’s 
sermons into a sinner’s face at one fell swoop. Here we’ve 
been talking for an hour, and you haven’t promised yet that 
you’ll help me to straighten out matters.” 

“I am very sorry, Marsdon, that you have gotten yourself 
into trouble ; sorry for the woman’s sake, but you will have 
to excuse me; I cannot ‘help you out;’ the matter is too 
delicate and too complicated for my clumsy advice. I can- 
not put myself in your place, and say what I would do 
under similar circumstances. I have always believed in a 
man being honest and straightforward,” Paul replied. 

“Very well, my old friend; if you cannot help me, we will 
not quarrel. But I must be going now. Will you walk 
with me?” 

“Not today, thank you. I have business to attend to, 
and letters to write.” 

“Letters to write! That’s almost as much a woman’s 
excuse, when she does not want to do a thing, as the head- 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


123 


a(?he is for a heartache. But just as you like, old boy. By- 
by; Lm off.” 

As soon as the door closed behind the retreating figure, 
I heard Paul Delamar draw a long sigh, perhaps of relief, 
to be rid of such a man, or perhaps of sorrow for woman’s 
grievances. Then he went to a small table (I saw him 
through an opening of the draperies), threw himself down in 
a chair, and rested his solemn face on his open hand, as if 
he were in a “brown study,” and one that was not very 
pleasant. 

It is impossible to describe my own feelings; they were a 
conglomeration of horror, surprise, unbelief, anger "and dis- 
gust at the unexpected, undreamed-of wickedness existing 
in man; and with it all the ever-recurring fear that Paul 
Delamar would discover me there, and know that I had 
overheard a conversation which (though the world would 
condemn as unfit for a woman’s ears) was a hideous revela- 
tion of masculine nature. 

Oh! if only I could get out of the room. But there was 
no other egress, and Paul sat there facing me until I felt as 
though I must scream, yet hardly daring to breathe. And 
then I fell to musing. 

“Were all men wicked? Was there only one good, pure 
man in five thousand? Was this Marsdon a fair representa- 
tive of those beings whom I had always been taught to 
believe as woman’s natural protector?” 

“I shall answer the questions for myself in course of 
time,” I said, with a determined nod at some imaginary 
person. “ I will make a study of the ge7ius homo, and if 
I convince myself the ‘animal’ is guilty, and not to be 
trusted, I will make it the work of my life to enlighten other 
women, and warn them against trusting such unworthy, 
heartless, cruel creatures.” 


124 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


Years have passed since I made that resolution, and I 
have kept it to the best of my ability. I have made a ‘study 
of the subject,’ and I have found that it has ‘two sides to it.’ 
The knowledge I have gained has rendered much sadder 
my outlook on life. It has robbed me of a great portion 
of my faith in humanity, and taught me “From my own 
heart to shelter my life; to mistrust the heart of another.” 

One part of my resolution I have not kept. I do not 
devote my life to “warning other women,” because I have 
learned the sad truth that women will not be warned. They 
will not believe that the men they love can be guilty of 
treachery and falsehood and deceit; and yet the world 
furnishes daily proofs of man’s perfidy to the women who 
love and trust, “not wisely but too well.” 

If women really knew the character of the great majority 
of men they would be far more careful and prudent in their 
conduct. When men begin to cultivate purity of, mind, 
then women can afford to be pleasant and gracious and 
natural with them. Many a gay, light-hearted, innocent 
woman has earned for herself an unsavory reputation, and in- 
vited temptation, because, in the overflowing of her animal 
spirits, she has caused evil-minded men to look upon her 
with eyes of pleasure, but not of purity. And what a sick- 
ening thing it is to hear a blase man remark, with self-com- 
placence, “Oh, yes, I loved her. I’ll admit, and I paid her 
a great deal of attention, and went with her everywhere, 
but I never meant to marry her. I could not marry her, 
you see, because there were some ‘little reports’ about her 
that I did not like, and though there was nothing definite, 
I could not afford to marry any woman whose name was 
not sans reprocheT 

I once happened to hear such a speech; I knew the 
reputation of the man who made it, and I could not refrain 
from exclaiming (mentally), “ ‘Oh, ye gods and little fishes!’ 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


125 


for a man like that — a polluted wretch like that — a vile, 
impure creature like that, to speak thus of a woman who 
was not known to be evil. Why, any woman was good 
enough for such a roue.” 

For a woman who uses her beauty, her feminine charms 
to lure men to their ruin, I entertain no feeling more tender 
than that of loathing and horror; but my motto is: 

'^Fiat justitia, mat coeltim!' 






CHAPTER XXL 


“O weary hearts! O slumbering eyes! 

O drooping souls, whose destinies 
Are fraught with fear and pain, 

Ye shall be loved again! 

No one is so accursed by Fate, 

* No one so utterly desolate 
But some heart, though unknown. 

Responds unto his own.’’ 

One day Ruthie and I returned home from a long walk 
to find a surprise in store for us — a surprise which ap- 
pealed, from the very first moment, to our young, romantic 
natures. 

As we passed the parlor door we saw a stranger (to us) 
sitting very near Mrs. Delamar, whose gentle face looked 
unusually perturbed, while she listened to the earnest tones 
of her visitor. 

The stranger seemed to’ be a well-preserved gentleman 
of middle age. 

Mrs. Delamar had been a widow quite two years, but she 
still wore mourning for her dead husband, and although 
she was an attractive woman and might have had suitors, 
she would never hear to receiving “gentleman visitors.” 

But there sat a gentleman, and evidently a suitor, for 
Mrs. Delamar’s downcast eyes rested persistently on her 
slim, white hands. 

The gentleman, hearing our footsteps, raised his head 
just in time to look straight into Ruthie’s beautiful, starry 
eyes. I saw him give a little start of surprise, turn to Mrs. 

126 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


127 


Delamar and say: “How like you she looks, the last time I 
saw your face!” 

“Ah ! an old acquaintance, who knew your mother .before 
her marriage,” I said to Ruth, as I caught up with her at 
her room door. (She had run on ahead of me.) 

“Yes,” laughed Ruth, “and from mamma’s expression 
it must be an old rejected lover I used to hear papa tease 
her about. I guess he has come back to take my dear old 
mamsy away from me — but he shan’t have her, Hilda. I 
will marry him myself, before he shall rob me of the sweet- 
est mamma in the world.” 

“Oh! you—” 

“Never mind me,” Ruthie interrupted, “but let me tell you 
the story, it is quite romantic. Mamma was engaged to 
him before she ever met papa. There was a lover’s quar- 
rel; mamma was young and very wilful — who would think 
it to look at her calm, sweet face now? — and would not 
listen to his explanation, and so they parted in bitter anger. 
Then mamma’s lover went oflf on a long sea voyage — the 
ship was wrecked and all the passengers were reported 
lost.” 

“It was learned, long afterwards, that they had been taken 
prisoners by some negroes or something; these savages 
were engaged in a civil war, and the side that was victorious 
kept the prisoners. The king, or prince, or whatever they 
call the ruler of their island, took quite a fancy to the 
handsome young American and was very kind to him, and 
he, in his turn, read the Bible to his prince, and gradually 
led him to believe in God, and embrace Christianity; but 
it took three long years for his captor to ‘get good enough’ 
to let his prisoner go free, to return to his own country. 
In the meantime mamsy, who knew nothing of the romantic 
and tragical fate of her discarded lover, thought him dead 
and transferred her ‘young affections’ to papa. They had 


128 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


been married quite a year when the ‘sea gave up its dead,’ 
and the long-lost lover returned to his home, only to be 
met with the sad news that his sweetheart was the wife of 
another man.” 

“At least, I think it must have been sad news to him, be- 
cause he loved her so deeply that he could not bear to see 
her another man’s wife, and so he went away again, and 
sought forgetfulness in strange scenes. Isn’t that the way 
the novels put it?” 

Ruthie had drawn me into her “cozy little den,” as she 
called her room; had pulled me down on the edge of her 
bed and had sat down by me, with both arms around me. 

“You naughty little novel reader,” I said, pulling one of 
her pretty, pink ears, “you are always making a jest of life; 
even its tragedies barely escape becoming comedies under 
your handling.” 

“Now, if you lecture me,” she said, pouting her red lips 
into a charming little moue, “I won’t tell you any more 
romances. But ‘get along with you,’ ” she cried, grabbing 
up the feather duster and making a sham stroke at me, “I 
want to array myself for conquest. I am going to don my 
most bewitching robe, and march down into the parlor cry- 
ing vtdt, 

“I would if I were you,” I replied, with assumed sarcasm, 
“he would never be able to withstand such an onslaught, 
but would recognize at once the fact that the ‘conquering 
hero comes.’ ” 

“Heroine, Madam Schoolmarm, if you please,” she cried, 
gaily; “you should be more careful in the choosing of your 
words, or you will disgrace the dignity of your calling.” 

“I imagine if ‘our girls’ could hear this foolish conversa- 
tion, neither of us would appear as an honor to our ‘call- 
ing.” 

“Heigh-ho! 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


129 


“ ‘A little nonsense now and then 
Is relished by the wisest men/ 

and you know, ‘Man embraces woman’, — at least that is 
what the preacher said, and preachers ought to know.” 

Thus Ruthie and I joked each other with our shallow 
badinage, and dreamed not of the dread shadow hovering so 
painfully near. 

Ruthie’s threat of ‘‘marrying the man, rather than lose 
mamma,” was not so idle a threat as both of us thought 
when it was uttered. For Gerald Whitney, who had re- 
turned after a lapse of many years, to recapture the lost 
love of his youth, ended by asking the mother to give him 
her daughter. 

And Ruthie, after becoming convinced (as she thought) 
that the “dear little mother” no longer cared for the lover 
of her girlhood, allowed her young heart to be won by a 
man old enought to be her father. 

The courtship was very brief. “I am too old to wait 
long for my wife,” Mr. Whitney urged. And so, for days 
the household was in a tumult of preparation for the coming 
marriage feast. 

Just one week before the wedding day I slipped away one 
evening from the “others,” and, hiding behind a cluster of 
palms, I sat down by an open window and looked out into 
the purple twilight, with sad, unseeing eyes, for I was 
grieving to think how quickly the golden summer days had 
glided by, and how soon I should have to return to the 
monotonous life of endless toil. I would not have shrunk 
from the labor if only it could have been sweetened by love. 

Suddenly my reverie was broken by Paul’s voice, saying 
gently : Ah ! I have found you at last.” 

I looked up with a little start, but I made no answer, 
for my spirit was too utterly bowed down with its weight 


130 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


of sorrow for me to assume, on the spur of the moment, 
my manner of levity, which I habitually wore as an outer 
garment, to disguise from the world the heart’s passions; 
for — 

‘T sometimes hold it half a sin 
To put in words the grief I feel, 

For words, like Nature, half reveal 
And half conceal the soul within.” 

“Of what are you thinking. Miss Hilda, to give your 
eyes that far-away, wistful, shadowy look?” Paul asked, as 
he sat down, facing me and leaning his beautiful Greek head 
against the window facing. 

“Oh, nothing,” I answered lightly, trying to recover my 
usual gayety of speech. 

“That is as truly a woman’s answer as ‘because,’ ” Paul 
replied, smiling and looking at me with a new, strange ten- 
derness. “But I hope you do not expect me to believe that 
you were sitting here alone thinking of ‘nothing.’ ” 

“Well, if you must know, I was just wondering if Long- 
fellow felt what he wrote in ‘Weariness,’ especially in the 
lines, — 

“ ‘O little hearts! that throb and beat 
With such impatient, feverish heat. 

Such limitless and strong desires; 

Mine that so long has glowed and burned. 

With passions into ashes turned. 

Now covers and conceals its fires.’ ” 

“Oh, Miss Hilda! don’t let your mind dwell on anything 
tliat is sad. And there is something I must know, and I 
have been hunting for you nearly an hour to ask you. I 
love you, Hilda — I have never loved any other woman, 
though I am an old bachelor; won’t you pity my loneliness 
and be my wife?” 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


131 

‘T never expect to marry/’ I said, hardly knowing what 
answer to make, in my great surprise ; for the thought had 
never occurred to me that Paul Delamar could love any 
woman — least of all a woman of my temperament, and one 
so unsuited to him. He was grave, dignified, impassive 
and deep, like all “still waters.” I was vivacious, impulsive, 
imaginative, impressionable, and like a shallow brook. 

“We seldom realize our ‘expectations,’ ” Paul replied, 
and then he proceeded to plead his cause — to smooth away 
all difficulties, to remove all obstacles; and then to insist 
on a shockingly speedy marriage. 

Well! there was a “double wedding” in Ruthie’s home 
just at that season when Nature arrays herself in her most 
gorgeous robes, and — 

“Morn on the mountain, like a summer bird. 

Lifts up her purple wing, and in the vales 
The gentle wind, a sweet and passionate wooer. 
Kisses the blushing leaf and stirs up life 
Within the solemn woods of ash deep-crimsoned, 

And silver beech, and maple yellow-leaved.” 


CHAPTER XXIL 


‘T>et any man once show the world that he feels 
Afraid of its bark, and ’twill fly at his heels ; 

Let him fearlessly face it, ’twill leave him alone; 

But ’twill fawn at his feet if he flings it a bone.” 

One day Ruthie ran into my room and said to me, “Hilda, 
I’ve got an idea!” 

I looked up into her happy, sparkling eyes, and said, with 
mock surprise: “No? it isn’t possible!” 

“Indeed, yes!” she cried, while the roguish smiles played 
“hide and seek” in the dimples of her lovely, piquant face. 
“I am going to try an experiment. You know, you and I 
have often discussed the ways of the world;’ the weakness 
of mankind;’ which, of course, includes womankind; ‘soci- 
ety’s little peccadilloes;’ the ‘instability of public estima- 
tion; the ‘lack of chairty’ (I do not mean the charity of alms- 
giving) among people in general, and especially among 
the people of small towns, and — oh, etc., etc., etc. You 
know what I mean, Hilda, dear.” 

“Yes, but what has that to do with your ‘experiment?’ ” 
I said. 

“Why, everything. Now, just listen to my plan; I’ve 
thought it all out. Gerald thinks I am not very well and 
wants me to go to the ‘piney woods’ for a few months. 
Now, Hilda, you know I should die of ennui in the ‘piney 
woods,’ if I didn’t have something to interest me, and so 
I am going to try my experiment. 

“Gerald shall select one of those little towns on the new 
railroad; they have sprung up, within the last five years, 

132 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


133 


like mushrooms at the base of trees. There are numbers 
of those little towns that seem to be right in the midst of 
pine trees. I saw them from the train window when I was 
on my wedding trip. Anyhow, there were pine trees enough 
for me; so after we have decided on what town we shall go 
to, I shall have Gerald rent the shabbiest house he can find 
and we will pretend to be very poor. You see, we will go 
to a town where nobody knows us, and so — if we are nicely 
received and kindly treated — k will be for our own worth 
and not for the sake of our money.” 

“You little dreamer,” I said, “I don’t believe Mr. Whit- 
ney will allow you to indulge in any such pranks; besides, 
you do not know what it is to be poor.” 

“Mr. Whitney,” imitating my tones, “will allpw me to do 
anything I want to, the dear old darling.” 

“Humph!” was all I said in reply to her sauciness. 

“All the world” knows how foolish an old man is over a 
young wife. Ruthie had only to express a wish to have it 
gratified. And she was so sweet, so unaffected, and so true 
and tender-hearted that no amount of humoring could 
“spoil her.” And although she was very young, she was far 
above the average woman in intelligence, and was a close 
observer of the world. She had often amused me by her 
graphic descriptions of some Mrs. Parvenue, of her ac- 
quaintance, to whom society extended a lavish welcome 
because of her “golden key” (that open sesame), her silks 
and laces and jewels, ignoring her ignorance, her lack of 
education and refinement, and her gauchcrie of taste and 
manner and conversation. 

After many inquiries Ruthie decided in favor of New- 
town, a place of two or three dozen families, most of whom 
claimed to be the descendants of old, aristocratic stock. 

Mr. Whitney, who soon entered into the spirit of his 
wife’s “experiment,” was sent to rent a very modest little 


134 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


house, and to furnish it in the plainest possible manner 
consistent with any comfort. 

Ruthie insisted that I should accompany her and help 
her ‘‘to get started,” as she expressed it. 

When Ruthie’s eyes first fell on the little one-story, four 
roomed house, whose exterior was perfectly innocent of 
paint, and surrounded as it was by numbers of tall, gaunt, 
sentinel-like pines, she laughed until the tears ran down 
her face. 

“Oh, Hilda!” she said, “isn’t it an awful hut to live in?” 

“I’ve seen worse,” I replied, laconically. But it cer- 
tainly was a contrast to her pretty, dainty home. 

In all small towns everybody knows everybody else’s 
business (better than they know their own); every new ar- 
rival stirs up the community into quite a little bubble of 
excitement. 

“Who are the newcomers?” “Have you seen them yet?” 
“What are they like?” “Are they rich or poor?” are some 
of the questions asked. If the “newcomers” happen to be. 
poor, the bubble soon bursts, and they are utterly ignored; 
that is, by the bo?i~to7isI The first Sunday after your 
arrival you are expected to appear at church. Everybody 
is there (every female body, I mean) and you become a 
target for many curious eyes. 

Ruthie was determined, if the people accepted her at all, 
they should do so on the score of her real worth. 

I could not remain to see the farce played out, but Ruth 
gave a voluntary promise to keep me “well posted.” 

Here are extracts from her first letter: 

“Darling Hilda: — 

“I have been here three weeks and none of the ‘big bugs’ 
have called on me yet. You remember I wore my plainest 
dress and hat to church that first Sunday. Our old “Mod- 
ern Diogenes” was right when he said “Society is founded 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


135 


on cloth.” And he was not very far wrong when he said 
“Man (including woman) is, and was always, a blockhead 
and dullard; much readier to feel and digest, than to think 
and consider; prejudice, which he pretends to hate, is his 
absolute lawgiver.” 

“Mrs. A. waits for Mrs. B. (who is a little ‘better off,’ and 
occupies a higher social position than Mrs. A.), and Mrs. B. 
waits for Mrs. C. (who is still higher up on the social lad- 
der), and so on — all the way through the alphabet. 

“A few of the ‘humble ones’ have called, and, of course, 
the important news has spread that ‘Mrs. Whitney seems to 
be a refined, educated lady, and must have ‘seen better 
days.’ ” 

“(Mrs. Whitney may be refined and educated, and may 
have seen better days, but those aristocratic, conservative 
ladies were not going to receive her on any such doubtful 
recommendation.) 

“Oh, Hilda! the manners of these people are so different 
from what I have always been accustomed to.” 

“Last night I went to a ball (it was public) and none of 
the married ladies would dance with any one excepting 
their own husbands. Why, in our city, it is considered 
‘bad form’ to dance with one’s own husband. And just let 
me tell you what a terrible fmix pas I made, before I had ob- 
served their custom. You know my two old friends, Fred 
Castleman and Will Armstrong; well, they are some kind of 
agents, and as they happened to be ‘stopping over’ in town, 
they went to the ball, too, and seeing me there, asked me 
to dance, and I, not knowing I should ‘shock the natives,’ 
danced with them. After awhile I noticed that some of the 
ladies ‘eyed me askance,’ and so I asked one of my ac- 
quaintances why it was that the married ladies were all 
‘wall flowers.’ ” 


136 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


“ ‘Because their husbands do not care to dance,’ was the 
reply. 

“‘Their husbands! Do they dance only with their hus- 
bands?” I asked. 

“ ‘Here it is considered an impropriety to dance with 
other men,” was the answer. 

“ ‘Shades of Moses!’ I said to myself, ‘I’ve done it now!’” 

As time went on, I received other letters from Ruthie, 
giving detailed accounts of her observation. In one of 
them she said: “Three or four families have moved in 
since I came here. The first was Mr. and Mrs. Hardtimes; 
they had a large family of children and seemed to be very 
poor; about as poor as people could be. Nobody visits 
them except the ‘common people;’ but when the father 
was killed by a runaway horse, and the mother and chil- 
dren were about to starve, one or two of the ‘My lady boun- 
tiful’ type gave them charity in the shape of alms. 

“The second family to ‘move in’ was, in appearance, in 
exceedingly ‘easy circumstances.’ Several of the nicest 
ladies ‘called,’ but they have not decided to extend them 
a very cordial reception — just yet. I do not know what 
the trouble is, but I think these old, original settlers would 
like to admit into their circle only those who are both rich 
and aristocratic. 

“The third family was Mr. and Mrs. Youngblood, two 
children and a sister. They came, they saw, they con- 
quered. The Queen of Sheba, in all her glory, could not 
have received a more cordial welcome than was extended 
to Mrs. Youngblood, who appeared everywhere, dressed in 
the height of fashion. She had wagon-loads of handsome 
furniture, and bronzes and bric-a-brac, and — oh ! and every- 
thing. 

“In no time the elite (?) had besieged her. She was invited 
everywhere — to all the fashionable teas, musicales, etc., etc. ; 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


137 


she was feted and courted, and had a conspicuous part in 
everything, that was anything. 

“Just the other night there was a concert here in which 
she had the leading part. I was not asked to take part in 
the ‘plays,’ but a committee called to solicit a donation. 
I did not attend the concert as I had a new book to read. 
I could not help wondering — as the exceedingly amateur 
piano tinklings floated to me, through my open window — 
if the dear people of this little town thought they were de- 
priving me of any great pleasure or benefit, by excluding 
me from their social pleasures. Ah, no! I have pleasure 
that they know nothing of — the pleasure of sweet commu- 
nion with the greatest minds of all ages. 

“But, Hilda, will it surprise you when I tell you that 
Mrs. Youngblood dances with other gentlemen than her 
husband, and that she not only dances with them, but she 
skates and laughs and chats with them whenever she 
pleases, and it is all right; all right for Mrs. Youngblood 
because she has money with which to gild her ‘freedom of 
manner.’ To show how inconsistent is human nature, the 
very people who criticized me because my ways were not 
like theirs (as if a woman from a large city could be ex- 
pected to have manners like those who were born and raised 
in the ‘piney woods’) receive Mrs. Youngblood and her city 
manners with open arms. 

“Will Armstrong was here again last week and he told 
me that Mr. Youngblood made his money gambling, and 
then came here where nobody knew his past, and where 
he could be the ‘biggest tad-pole in a little mud puddle.’ 

“The fourth family to cast their lot in with the good(?) 
people of Newtown was Mr. and Mrs. Norton and their 
baby. They had not been married very many years. For- 
tune (who is a fickle jade) had not smiled upon these peo- 
ple, and they were making a brave struggle to ‘keep their 


138 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


heads above water’ and to live within their income, being 
honest people, who preferred to live humbly and ‘pay their 
way’ than to ‘make a show’ on other people’s money. Well, 
just about the time they arrived here, Newtown was on a 
boom, and there was no respectable house to be rented; 
so it was a choice of boarding at ruinous prices or living 
in two small rooms over her husband’s office. With the 
self-sacrifice and devotion of a good woman, the wife chose 
to live in the two little, stuffy rooms. A pen picture of her 
situation to you, Hilda, with your vivid imagination, is 
entirely unnecessary. 

“The weeks followed each other in rapid succession, and 
no one went to see that lonely little woman. There she 
lived, day after day, with no more cheerful company than 
her own sad, desolate thoughts, and memories of the old 
home and old friends she had given up for her husband’s 
sake. Her health being delicate, she was deprived of even 
the small comfort of ‘shopping,’ of taking little walks, of at- 
tending Sunday service, and every other method of divert- 
ing her thoughts or enlivening her lojiely situation. 

“You may be asking yourself the natural question: ‘Why 
didn’t Ruthie do her duty and cheer the lonely little woman 
by calling, herself?’ And you may be thinking hard things 
of me, that I did not ‘call’ because ‘the others’ had not 
done so, and that I was too cowardly to brave ‘public opin- 
ion’ by visiting a woman whom other women neglected. 
No! I do not really believe you would do me such an in- 
justice, knowing me as well as you do. Besides, my un- 
pleasant experience here has rendered me more thoughtful 
for others, more considerate, and far less selfish, and I am 
fast growing to feel much like yourself, that I prefer to ex- 
tend a courtesy to the poor and neglected, who need such 
small kindness, than to the rich and influential who find 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


139 


only too great a number willing and anxious to 'toady’ 
after, and curry favor with them. 

“I will tell you why I did not call (at first). 

"You know I stay at home very closely, and know but lit- 
tle of what occurs here, in this wonderfully religious, Chris- 
tian town, with its boasted morality, etc., etc., and knew 
nothing of what I am telling you until, one day, I went up 
town on a business errand, and, in passing Mr. Norton’s 
office, I raised my eyes to the upper window, and there I 
saw a thin, delicate, pale face with large, dark eyes looking 
wearily out at the passers-by: I said to myself. That is a 
dreary looking place for a woman’s home. I wonder if she 
is happy!’ Somehow I couldn’t get that face out of my 
mind. It seemed to haunt me with its look of melancholy. 

"After I had finished my errand I went into Mr. Norton’s 
office, and seeing a gentleman there, I said: ‘Mr. Nor- 
ton?’ He bowed assent, and I continued: ‘I am Mrs. 
Whitney. I have come to call on your wife, but I do not 
know how to find my way up to her rooms.’ 

" ‘It is an inconvenient way,’ Mr. Norton replied, ‘but my 
wife will be very glad to see you. Just walk this way, Mrs. 
Whitney, you will find my wife right in that room at the 
head of the stairs.’ I walked to the open door, and there I 
paused, as Mrs. Norton looked up at me with evident sur- 
prise in her dark eyes. 

" ‘Come in’, she said, and advanced to meet me. 

"We were soon chatting quite freely, and I learned, from 
her conversation, that she had been here quite two months 
and only one or two ladies had ‘called;’ I could see that she 
felt hurt and neglected, but was too proud to acknowledge 
it. She said, in her quiet, gentle way, ‘I do not blame the 
ladies for not visiting me, because I live in such a dreary 
little place, and am not comfortably situated.’ 

" ‘So much the greater reason why the ladies should call,’ 


140 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


I said, ‘and help you to feel more cheerful and at home, and 
not leave you here to feel like a stray atom of humanity, cast 
upon a deserted island. I heard only today, that you had not 
been accorded a very cordial welcome, and I know how to 
sympathize with you. You know the old adage, “A fellow 
feeling,” etc. And it should be part of our religion to be 
kind to- the stranger within our gates.’ 

“ ‘Yes,’ replied Mrs. Norton, ‘that is the way I view the 
matter, but there are numbers of good women who never 
seem to consider it a duty to extend a courtesy to any one, 
unless it suits their convenience to do so. Now, you know, 
Mrs. Whitney, there is nothing, absolutely nothing, to be 
gained by visiting a woman situated as I am here.’ 

“ ‘Well, you may think I am a “crank,” Mrs. Norton, but 
I do assure you, if you had been luxuriously situated, and, 
in consequence, surrounded by friends and neighbors, I 
never should have thought of “calling,” because I should 
have felt that you had plenty of friends without me; and I 
never indulge in making “fashionable calls,” merely for idle 
pastime, or as a tribute to conventionality,’ I said earnestly. 

“ ‘I greatly appreciate the kindness which prompted you 
to come, Mrs. Whitney,’ she said, ‘and you have no idea 
how much your little visit has cheered me,” she added, as I 
rose to take leave. And Hilda, dear, I cannot tell you how 
much better I felt, to think I had the moral courage to do 
that which I considered a duty and a kindness, regardless of 
‘public opinion.’ Of course, I am perfectly aware that the 
aristocrats of the town (God save the mark) will elevate 
their very superior noses, and think, even if they do not say 
it, that ‘Mrs. Whitney is of the same class as Mrs. Norton, 
or she would not visit her.’ But I think I did right, don’t 
you, dear?” 

I answered Ruthie’s inquiry, by saying: “Of course you 
did right, but you must not expect any gratitude for your 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


141 

sweet little kindnesses, or you will be disappointed. Should 
Mrs. Norton ever become ‘prosperous’ and occupy a high 
social position, she will doubtless erase your name from her 
list of desirable acquaintances. She will reason thus: ‘I 
shall not care to associate with Mrs. Whitney, because if 
she were of the “upper ten” she would never have called on 
me while I was a “nobody” ’ — at least — such is life, as your 
friend Hilda has found it. And you know, Ruthie, dear, I 
have been making a study of life — lo, these many years!” 

In the next letter I received from Ruthie, she said: 

“Ah! Hilda, I guess you think I am growing bitter. 
Well, I have had quite enough of one feature of my experi- 
ment; and now I shall try another. Gerald is going to 
rent the handsomest house in town, and he is going to fur- 
nish it elegantly. He has ordered a magnificent carriage 
with silver mountings, a pair of handsome jet black horses, 
a coachman, and servants from the city. I am going to 
give a grand entertainment, and I’ll see if there is any truth 
in Owen Meredith’s declaration that the world will fawn 
at your feet if you ‘fling it a bone.’ 

“I intend to teach the people of Newtown a little lesson, 
and then I shall ‘shake the dust of this city off my feet,’ and 
go home to mother. 

“I will keep you posted if my ‘experiment’ develops any 
new features.” 

5|{ >l£ 5|S sje >|« :)« 

“Dearest Hilda: 

“I am perfectly disgusted with human nature; but it is 
laughable, too, to witness the chagrin of these people and 
their clumsy efforts to rectify their mistake and ingratiate 
themselves into the favor of the ‘Rich Mrs. Whitney.’ You 
know, darling, I am not trying the second part of my exper- 
iment with any mean, narrow wish to have revenge on those 
who have treated me with so much unkindness and neglect; 


142 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


neither is it for any vain wish for a grand display, but sim- 
ply for the purpose of proving some things to my own sat- 
isfaction. 

“I am now occupying that position which is mine by 
right of birth, education and refinement — ah, no! I forget; 
I should have said by right of the almighty dollar — that 
beautiful, adorable god, before whom all civilization bows 
down and renders homage. 

“Oh, Hilda! sometimes I feel like crying out: 

“ ‘Arise, my God, and strike, for we hold Thee just; 

Strike dead the whole weak race of venomous worms 

That sting each other here in the dust; 

We are not worthy to live.’ ” 


CHAPTER XXIII. 


“Oh! ever thus from childhood’s hour 
I’ve seen my fondest hopes decay. 

I never loved a tree or flower, 

But ’twas the first to fade away. 

I never nursed a dear gazelle, 

To glad me with its soft, black eye, 

But when it came to know me well 
And love me, it was sure to die!” 

“In the midst of life we are in death.” After Ruth came 
back to us she lived only a few short, sweet months — 
months fraught with the mysterious and wondrous joy 
of anticipated motherhood, and then she lay down to sleep, 
with her “sweet, new blossom of humanity” lying dead upon 
her cold, still breast.” 

Day after day the black horror of that mound of earth 
was hidden away under banks and banks of beautiful, fresh- 
cut roses — the flowers she loved best in life. To this day 
I never see a rose but that I think of my dear, dead friend, 
and with the thought of her and her intense love of this 
beautiful “queen of flowers” comes the memory of those 
sweet words : — 

“Crumpled fold on fold — 

Once they lay upon her breast, and ages 
Cannot make them old.” 

It is a strange, sad truth, but I have never loved any- 
thing but that it was sure to die, or to be separated from 
me in some relentlessly cruel way. 

143 


144 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


Paul, who was a deep student and a great bookworm, 
devoted himself to his one grand passion of searching the 
world over for antiquities, for old fossils, for historical data, 
etc., etc. Sometimes his researches kept him from home 
for months and months at a time. 

So, after Ruthie’s death I was very lonely, and the 
months dragged themselves away slowly, slowly, slowly. 

Strange! how we count time. Sometimes a month ap- 
pears as dreary, endless ages. At other times, it seems with 
us one momeht, and gone the next! 

“Time!! Where is it? 

Come, gone — gone forever — 

Gone as to death the merriest liver — 

Gone as the year at the dying fall — 

Tomorrow, today, yesterday, never — 

Gone once for all.” 


CHAPTER XXIV. 


“The life of woman is full of woe, 

Toiling on and on and on, 

With breaking heart and tearful eyes 
The secret longings that arise 
Which this world never satisfies! 

Some more, some less, but of the whole 
Not one quite happy, no, not one!’’ 

Long months after Ruthie’s death I found a letter which 
she had received while she was in Newtown trying her 
“experiment.” The letter was from a very dear friend of 
hers, whom all of us had regarded as a genius, while she 
was yet at school. 

Geniuses, as a general thing, are considered cranky (and 
Beatrice Haldene was no “exception to the rule”). The 
very possession of that subtle gift which makes a genius, 
necessarily marks the possessor as different from the “com- 
mon herd,” and wins for him or her the misnomer — 
“Crank.” 

Beatrice Haldene was essentially different from the “com- 
mon herd”; the “common herd” could not appreciate her, 
and so it resented her genius, or “cranky ways.” But she 
and her letter would have no relevance to this story of 
“Life — As Hilda Found It,” only that the story of Beatrice 
Haldene‘s life, as portrayed in her letter, is one (among the 
many) of the sad stories which have come to my knowledge, 
and forced me into the belief that life — especially the life of 
woman — “is full of woe.” The letter ran thus: 

“Dear Ruthie: — When I read your last letter, giving me 

145 


10 


146 


LIFE-AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


an account of your ‘experiment,’ I enjoyed a hearty laugh — 
a rare thing with me — yet the last echo of the laugh had 
scarcely died away, ere it was followed by a sigh, for it 
grieves me when I think how this beautiful, beautiful world 
— God’s glorious gift to man^ — has been so sadly marred 
by the passions of the human race. 

‘T cannot understand why it is that the beings who were 
made in the very image of God should have become so 
warped. I look into the faces of men and women who 
cross my path in life, and my wonder grows, that behind 
those smiling masks lurk envy, hatred, malice, distrust, 
suspicion, and all the other horrible, evil passions that live 
and grow and have their being in the human heart. 

‘T have never told you, dear Ruth, what a bitter experi- 
ence mine has been, because I feared you would not be able 
to understand or sympathize with me. 

“Women who have always been shielded from contact with 
the shadowy side of life, who have never met with a single 
temptation; women who have been reared in the sunshine of 
life, who have lived among its flowers and butterflies, 
and fed upon the nectar and ambrosia of the gods, are 
always hard and cruel to their less fortunate sisters — always 
more than ready and willing to think evil of them, where 
no evil exists; always eager to deal them a blow more deadly 
in its incomparable cruelty than a dagger thrust ' in the 
heart. 

“But since you have learned how to value public estima- 
tion, and to know that it ‘canonizes many an arch-hypocrite, 
and martyrs many a saint,’ I know you will not misjudge 
and condemn me because of the treatment — unjust treat- 
ment — I have received from the people here. You know 
when I was at school with you, my parents were wealthy, 
and as I was an only child I was never crossed in any- 
thing, and so I grew up self-willed, thoughtless, impulsive — 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


147 


always doing that which pleased me, and never knowing 
what it was to have my conduct censured, or my little wil- 
ful, imperious ways condemned.” 

“But when my parents died it was found that everything 
was under heavy mortgages, and in settling up the busi- 
ness, nothing was left for me. I had no relatives, and I 
was too proud to accept help from strangers. Then I cut 
myself adrift from old acquaintances of happier days, be- 
cause I could not endure to be pitied and patronized by 
people with whom I had once associated upon equal terms, 
and I came here in answer to an advertisement for a music 
teacher.” 

“I knew no one. I came here poor and in trouble. The 
people received me as a teacher, but they gave me no 
friendly welcome, no sympathy. You know I have ‘queer 
ways,’ and used always to show a contempt for life’s ‘con- 
ventionalities.’ (One can afford to do those things when 
one is rich.) The people here never understood me and I 
was too proud and too independent of spirit to make any 
overtures, or to resort to the vulgarity of ‘pushing’ my way 
into society. I was young, gay, and bubbling over with 
animal life, and at first it hurt me cruelly to be excluded 
from all social pleasures, for of course I would associate 
with the best or none.” 

“Then I married Harold, and because I laughed and 
chatted and danced and was pleasant with other gentlemen 
I shocked the ‘proprieties,’ for the people, like those of 
Newtown, are prudish and conservative to the backbone!” 

“I was ‘bright, intelligent, and an interesting conversa- 
tionalist’ (I am only quoting the words of my critics), and 
— well! the women begun to look askance at me, and, while 
they did not ‘sweep by on the other side,’ they tried to be- 
lieve I was not the ‘right sort of person,’ and to make me 
believe the same myself. You know the old saying: ‘The 


148 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


best way to make a man a thief is to let him know that you 
think him a thief.’ If there is any truth in the saying, then 
this little town can rest with a conscience void of offence 
toward itself in failing to make of me a ‘wicked woman;’ 
for it has truly done its ‘little best’ by showing me plainly 
that it considered me one. And it has succeeded in embit- 
tering my life to such an extent that I have grown so 
hardened I ‘laugh in its face.’ But, ‘Woman is too slight a 
thing to trample the world without feeling its sting.’ ” 

“I have felt its sting, but I am determined not to suffer in 
vain. ‘Vulgar natures alone suffer vainly.’ I go my own 
way, knowing that between God and my conscience the 
truth is known, and, that though these Pharisaical, ‘holier- 
than-thou Christians,’ have in a measure ruined my life, they 
cannot touch my soul.” 

“After poor Harold died, I withdrew into myself, and I 
live in a little world of my own. But you know, every 
woman who has once tasted the sweet, rich wine of life, and 
felt it change to gall and wormwood on her lips, must needs 
turn to something for a solace; and so, Ruthie, I went to 
work and dug up my ‘one talent’ that had, for so long a time, 
lain ‘buried ;’ and now I find comfort in writing. Ah ! some 
day, perhaps, I will be famous, and then you will be proud 
of your old schoolmate, will you not?” 

“Do you wonder why I do not leave here and go some- 
where else to live, among more charitable, purer-minded 
people?” 

“I will tell you, my dear Ruth. It is because I am innocent, 
and I will not run away as if I were a criminal fleeing from 
justice. Besides, there are other reasons; I have my little 
home here; my husband is buried here; I can sit by my 
window at night and see the white marble slab that marks 
his grave gleaming through the moonlight.” 

“And, my friend, I have another and a weightier reason 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


149 


‘Duty’ keeps me here. When my husband died he left me 
a sacred trust — his aged, grey-haired father. Poor, old 
man! He is very old and feeble, and shrinks with horror 
from the thought of leaving here and going among 
strangers to die, and so I shall remain here and ‘face the 
enemy’ to the bitter end. 

“ ‘Ah, what shall I be at fifty, should nature keep me alive, 

If I find the world so bitter when I am but twenty-five?’ *’ 

“And, now, Ruthie, what do you think happened to me 
only yesterday? I was feeling sadder and more lonely than 
usual, so I went out for a little walk in the bright, beautiful 
sunshine. As I was strolling along, drinking in deep 
draughts of sweet, fresh air, what should be my ill fate but 
to meet a crowd of ladies. Some of them bowed to me tim- 
idly, as if they were doubtful of doing what was right. But 
some of them became suddenly interested in some very im- 
portant topic of conversation, and pretend not to see me.’’ 

“Hurt me? Of course it did. From that moment the sun- 
shine lost its beauty, the balmy, refreshing air became 
intolerable and seemed to be suffocating me. I hurried 
home, threw myself face down on my divan and lay there for 
hours wrestling with my misery. Then my mood changed. 
I sat up, with a hard look in my tearless eyes, resolved to 
care no more for it, and strengthening my resolve by re- 
peating to myself the words of the poet: 

“ ‘Scorned, to be scorned by one that I scorn, 

Is that a matter to make me fret? 

That a calamity hard to be borne?’ ” 

“Well, is it a matter to make me fret, because a few un- 
kind, uncharitable, evil-minded women forget the old adage, 
'Honi soit qui mal y pensef ’ 


150 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


‘T have often wondered why it is that women are so cruel 
to each other. 

“But I find my letter has grown so long I really must 
‘call a halt’ 

“Hoping to be in a more cheerful frame of mind when I 
write again, I am as ever, 

Your sincere friend, 

Beatrice Haldene. 

After I had read the letter a second time, I laid it away 
among my “treasures” as reverently as one might plant an 
Easter lily on the grave of the martyred dead, for the writer 
had died of a broken heart. Gifted with a nature whose ex- 
treme sensitiveness and intense sensibility could not brook 
the world’s unjust censure and suspicions, she had grieved 
herself to death. 

As England’s sweet singer says: 

“We cannot be kind to each other here for an hour; 

We whisper, and hint, and chuckle, and grin at a brother’s 
shame; 

However we brave it out, we men are a little breed.” 


CHAPTER XXV. 


“Between you and me heaven fixes a gulf over which you 
must see 

That our guardian angels can bear us no more. 

We each of us stand on an opposite shore.’' 

When Warner Graham and I met again, I was married 
and the mother of two lovely children, and he had a wife 
and a sweet little fair-haired boy. 

The meeting was a great surprise to both of us, for we 
had heard nothing of each other for several years. 

I had gone to New Orleans to transact some important 
business for Paul, who was then in Europe, somewhere, 
prosecuting his “researches.” One day as I walked into 
the hotel parlor, I saw Warner Graham standing by a win- 
dow, with a newspaper in his hand. He looked at me, as 1 
paused in quick surprise at seeing him there, and then he 
smiled a little sadly and said, “Don’t you know me, Hilda?” 
(He never would call me anything but Hilda.) “Have I 
changed so much? H??/ have not changed at all. Stand- 
ing there, you look as young as you did when I saw you 
last — years ago.” 

In my first surprise I had involuntarily paused, caught 
an inner fold of my lip between my teeth, given a little in- 
ward gasp, felt my eyes dilate; then quickly recovering my 
conventional garb, I answered quietly, “Oh, yes! I knew 
you instantly. Old Father Time has dealt gently with you, 
also; you have not aged one little bit in appearance.” 

151 


152 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


“Not in appearance,” he said quickly, “but in heart. I 
was never so shocked in my life, Hilda, as I was when 
I heard of your marriage.” 

“I fail to understand why you should have been so 
shocked at the news of my marriage ; any woman can marry, 
unless she be as ugly as the ‘Hunchback of Notre Dame;’ 
and even then her hope is not a ‘forlorn one’ if she happens 
to have enough gold to gild her deformity,” I replied 
lightly, for I was determined to avoid, if possible, any 
reference to that painful past. 

He had placed a chair for me near the grate, for the 
weather was chilly, and a cheerful fire filled the room with 
alluring brightness. And then he had closed the parlor 
doors to “keep out the draught.” Thus we were alone, and 
tolerably free from the possibility of any interruption to our 
tete-a-tete. 

If I had been a wise or a prudent woman I would have 
invented some excuse for leaving the room. But I was 
neither the one nor the other; besides I was an unhappy, 
heart-hungry, lonely woman, and I was glad to see, again, 
an old, familiar face. “Why should I deny myself the inno- 
cent pleasure of conversing with Warner Graham?” No 
doubt, that is the question I would have asked, if I had 
thought anything at all about it. But not the least thought 
of a possible danger, ever once entered my mind. And the 
“coming event” did not “cast its shadow before.” 

After a long pause in which Warner sat and looked at me 
intently he said, “I fully expected you would write to me, 
some day, and tell me to come back to you.” 

“Some day! some day,” I began humming the old tune 
in a low, light manner, as if I were thinking only of the 
song; for I thought it best to “let the dead bury its dead.” 

“Day after day, week after week, month after month, 
I waited for the summons that never came. But I believed 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


153 


it would come, in time ; for I thought you loved me with the 
same deathless love that filled my heart for you.” 

“Let us not speak of that now, Warner; it can do no 
good. Talk to me of something else. Tell me of yourself. 
The last time I heard anything of you was when you mar- 
ried. I should so like to meet your wif^. Is she is in the 
city?” 

“No; she is in Baltimore with friends. But you will pai- 
don me if I insist on speaking of that which is nearest my 
heart. For years I have wanted to see you and tell you of 
what you have done for me. You have ruined my life, 
Hilda, because the quarrel was all your fault. You, alone, 
were to blame, and it was your duty to recall me.” 

“It was not ‘air my fault, Warner; the ‘Old Adam’ in you, 
makes you say that. But did you really believe that I could 
so far forget my pride as to recall you?” 

“Hilda, that accursed pride of yours has ruined — not only 
your life and mine, but the life of another,” Warner said. 

“Mr. Graham, I do not understand your words; pray ex- 
plain your meaning,” I replied, with dignity. 

“Ah, Hilda! ‘Forgive me if in it I look. 

But I read in your heart as I read in a book.’ ” 

“You are not happy, Hilda. I see it in your eyes — your 
large, deep eyes, ‘Too pure and too honest to disguise the 
sweet soul shinning through them.’ ” 

“Don’t, Warner! please don’t talk to me like that.” I 
said, struggling to keep back the tears of self-pity, for I was 
not happy. 

When Paul Delamar asked me to be his wife, I told him 
that while I admired him, above all other men, for his beau- 
tiful character, his spotless reputation and his pure life, I 
did not love him as a woman should love the man whose 
life is to become so closely interwoven with her life. But 


154 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


he only laughed at me, and said, “That will come later. 
You are so much younger than I, and my proposal was too 
sudden. Besides you are extremely romantic, but time will 
remedy all that, and if you will consent to marry me, I will 
risk all the rest.” 

But we both “builded upon the sand.” 

In his travels Paul met the woman who had caused the 
quarrel between Warner and me, and with fiendish intent 
she related the story to my husband, exaggerating it, and 
adding many evil insinuations. And Paul, like a foolish 
man, listened to her venom, and grew colder and sterner 
toward his wife, freezing her heart — plowing and harrowing 
and making ready the soil to receive whatever tares the 
enemy might choose to sow ; when, if he had only known ; if 
he had only been a little wiser in “love’s ways,” he could so 
easily have changed that wife’s admiration for him into 
something sweeter and dearer. But he did not know, and 
he made the same mistake thousands of men are making 
today. 

Day by day his neglect, his coldness, grew more marked. 
And day by day I brooded more sadly over my disappointed 
hopes — and what “might have been” if only I had not quar- 
reled with Warner Graham. 

Thus silly women make themselves unhappy, grieving 
for their lost loves; and nine times out of ten, if those same 
women had married their “lost loves,” they would have 
soon found themselves sadly disillusioned. But it is human 
nature to long for that which we cannot have. When we 
are little children we cry for the moon. When we become 
grown-up children we continue to cry for the moon — only 
another kind of moon. 

“Why shouldn’t I speak the truth, Hilda? You and I 
made one fatal blunder when we parted in anger, and al- 
lowed our damnable pride to stand between us and our love. 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


155 


We have paid the penalty of that blunder in years of untold 
suffering. When a criminal has paid the penalty of his 
crime, he is free to begin his life anew. Hilda, let us begin 
our lives anew — let us be brave enough to strike off the fet- 
ters of conventionality, and free ourselves from those ties 
which are but mockeries; the world is so large, let us go to 
some far country and 

“Hush, Warner!” I cried, interrupting his excited, rapid 
flow of words. “You do not know what you are saying. 
I have a husband — and you, a wife. Our lives must ” 

“You have a husband!” he said, not waiting to hear me 
out. “Where is your husband? and why are you here 
alone?” he asked sternly, growing more and more excited. 
“I can tell you, Hilda, where he is. I met an old friend of 
mine, and he told me Paul Delamar is in Europe enjoying 
himself — climbing mountains, visiting old ruins, sketching, 
painting, writing articles for magazines, giving descriptions 
of his travels, etc. My friend met him in Italy where he 
was watching the excavations at Pompeii, and buying up 
old curios. You tell me you have a husband, Hilda? Why, 
you have not even seen Paul Delamar for fifteen months, 
and you have no husband; he is not your husband! you are 
not his wife! you are mine! by all the law of heaven, the 
law of love — you are my wife! I loved you first, and you 
promised yourself to me! In the eyes of the world you 
have a husband, and I a wife; but I tell you NO! Marriage 
without love is no marriage at all; it is worse than a sham! 
it is a farce! a living lie!” 

In his excitement and agitation Warner had risen from 
his chair and was standing facing me, looking down at me 
with gleaming, burning eyes. I knew that I ought to leave 
him, but I could not have moved a step to have saved my 
life. As soon as he paused for an instant in his rapid 
speech, I laid my hand gently against him, and giving him 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


156 

a little push I said quietly., “Sit down, Warner, and let us 
discuss this subject calmly — if we must discuss it at all.” 

Some womanly instinct warned me to pacify him by 
kind and gentle words, rather than irritate him by exhib- 
iting anger and indignation. Besides, I knew my own 
moral strength, and I was not afraid to listen to his wild 
words. I knew that nothing he could say would be any 
temptation to me.” 

He sat down, still keeping his eyes fastened on my face, 
and then he said again: “Marriage without love is no mar- 
riage at all.” 

“Well, Warner, love without marriage is no marriage at 
all,” I said quietly, for I saw that he was waiting for me to 
say something. 

“Love, fulfilled, is marriage — marriage in its truest sense. 
The world is trammeled by conventionality. All civiliza- 
tion is ‘straining at gnats and swallowing camels.’ The 
world says, Tt is a sin to do thus and so.’ I ask you, Hilda, 
do you with your intelligence, your analytical brain, believe 
there is any more sin in a man or woman cutting the ‘gor- 
dian-knot of conventional virtue’ and choosing to live with 
his or her soul’s mate, scorning the world’s artificial sys- 
tem, than there is in acting a lie by continuing to live with 
one whom you cannot love, simply because of a priestly 
ceremony? The world calls marriage without the ‘cere- 
mony,’ adultery; tell me, is it any more adultery than mar- 
riage with a ceremony, but without the love? And even 
if we are guilty of the sin of adultery, is it any greater sin 
than lying? What human being has a right to be our 
judge? Come, Hilda! be brave, and give yourself to the 
man who loves you as no other man has ever loved you. 
You are the one woman in all the world for me. Will you 
not come?” he cried, springing up and holding out his arms 
to me. 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


i57 


“No, Warner,” I said with quiet firmness. “But if you 
had come back to me when no barrier stood between us, I 
would have married you.” 

“Ah! I see,” he said bitterly. “You have never forgiven 
me. You refuse to come to me now, that you may taste the 
sweets of revenge. Do you not know, revenge is a passion 
unworthy of noble natures?” 

“How little you understand me, Warner! The thought 
of revenge is far from my heart,” I answered. 

“Then give me your reasons for refusing to make me 
happy, I insist on knowing.” 

“Oh, Warner! there are so many reasons why I cannot 
do as you wish. Why harrow our souls longer with such 
a useless discussion?” 

“It is not a useless discussion. I will not have it so,” he 
cried sharply. 

“Your happiness would not be of long duration, War- 
ner, if I were to consent to .commit this awful sin you 
ask of me. Besides, would you be willing to purchase your 
happiness at such a pric? — the price of a woman’s soul? It 
is easy enough for a woman to give up the world for love, 
and consider it ‘well lost;’ but, oh, Warner! I cannot give 
up God for human love, and consider Him well lost. No 
man is worth a sacrifice like that,” I said earnestly. 

“Have you no heart left? Is it utterly dead?” he asked 
sadly. 

“My heart is not dead. I only want to do what is right.” 

“Is it right to live a lie? Is it right to force me to live 
a lie? You do not know what a terrible thing my life is. 
You will not believe in my love, but I tell you, Hilda, life 
holds no other love for me. If you refuse to give yourself 
to me now, the day will come when your heart will be tor- 
tured to remember. 


158 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


‘It was not a love! ’twas a world, 

Twas a life that lay ruined.’ 

“Men are not like women, my darling. Women seem so 
submissive to what they term ‘duty.’ ” 

“What else can we do? We must ‘pass under the rod.’ 
Our lives are so different from that of men. As soon as we 
are old enough to begin learning life’s lessons, we know 
that we must live under one long struggle for self-mastery, 
self-control. We do not yield to our passions as men do. 
We must do our duty at any cost.” 

“That is a very pretty theory, Hilda, but it will not do to 
put into practice in this short life of ours. Living, as you 
and I are living now — denying each other our love — is 
wronging, not only our two selves, but the two to whom we 
are bound by ties that are but a mockery.” 

“Oh, Warner! I cannot think as you do. Every fiber 
of my being shrinks from the thought of broken marriage 
vows, of gratifying unholy love, of losing one’s honor.” 

“We have broken our marriage vows already in spirit. 
And as for ‘unholy love,’ — what is unholy love? I do not 
know the meaning of that term. And for me, ‘My honor will 
live where my love lives, unshamed.’ Is it the sin you 
are afraid of, Hilda? If it is the thought of the sin that 
frightens you, darling, I can tell you now, it is no greater 
sin than the one we are already guilty of — the sin of loving 
each other; if you call that a sin. Say you will go with me, 
Hilda. You will never regret it. I will make you so 
happy,” he cried, pleadingly. 

“No!” I said, shuddering and covering my face with my 
hands, as I realized the shame of his words. “How dare 
you ask me to be your mistress, Warner Graham? How 
dare, you, I say?” 

“My God! are you mad, Hilda? Why, you would be 
as truly my wife — aye, more so than thousands who stand 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


159 


before God’s altar, as you and I have done, with a lie on 
their lips and a lie in their hearts.” 

“It is not madness,” I said, “for that is just exactly what 
I would be. You cannot deceive me with your sophistries. 
If I were to take this awful step you ask of me, I would for- 
feit, by that very act of devotion and unselfish love, the re- 
spect of him for whom I had given up the world and God. 
In a few months, after your passion had spent its ‘novel 
force,’ you would tire of me, as all men tire of the women 
who sacrifice honor for love.” 

“And how can you promise me happiness? Even if the 
lashings of an outraged conscience failed to rob my love 
of its happiness, the very insecurity of my position would 
keep me on an endless rack of torture. You cannot assure 
me against the loss of your love, against the time when you 
should grow weary of me, and either forsake me outright, 
leaving me a ruined, fallen, hopeless, desperate woman, or 
else drive me to madness by exhibiting daily your con- 
tempt for a woman who could be guilty of such folly.” 

“Oh, Hilda! you must consider me a villain — a libertine — 
if you think I could be guilty of such dastardly, cowardly 
conduct,” he said, looking at me reproachfully. 

“Why, all men are like that,” I answered. “Do not we 
read daily the sad story of some forsaken woman? 
Are there not thousands of proofs that men are never true 
to the girls whom they wrong, or the women who love ‘not 
wisely but too well?’ You see I have made a study of man, 
and I know the nature of the animal.” 

“How ignorant you are of the world! How little you 
really know,” he said. 

“Don’t you know you only hear and read of those cases 
in which the women are forsaken?” 

“Ah! but the women are always forsaken, sooner or 
later,” I said. 


i6o 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


“I tell you no! There are hundreds of marriages in our 
large cities, where the wife has been a wife prior to any 
priestly ceremony. You do not hear or read of them, be- 
cause neither party has any wish or reason to reveal the 
secret. But I say again, there are hundreds of such mar- 
riages, and they are happy marriages, too.” 

“What you say may be true — men know more of such 
things than women do. But I cannot believe that way; and 
I have no inclination to take any such dreadful risks.” 

“By heaven! you are not a woman — you are marble; hard 
and cold as marble — you sit there looking as calm and im- 
passive as a statue, using that analytical brain of yours in 
picking things to pieces and weighing “risks.” And I 
thought you loved me! Oh, Hilda! have you no pity for 
me?” 

“Yes; but I am thinking of others besides ourselves. Do 
you think I have no pity for the woman who is your lawful 
wife? Do you think I could be so heartless as to rob her 
of that which is hers, or ought to be by every ‘sacred right?’ 
Warner, you have forgotten your duty to your wife.” 

“Hilda, I have forgotten nothing; but I am weary of this 
sham life — this vague unrest and ceasless longing for some- 
thing I have never yet known; this daily, nightly, hourly 
crying of my heart for my soul’s mate, my other half. My 
life is so incomplete, so terribly unfinished, so full of un- 
answered voices. Edith is a good woman, sweet and pure 
and loving, but she is like a thoughtless child, and has no 
mind above her amusements, her fresh young beauty, her 
dresses, her ‘teas.,’ her musicales, her ‘dinners,’ her servants, 
and all such things. She can never comprehend my nature, 
or its wants. When I go to the house I call my home, and 
she meets me with her careless, smiling face, and holds up 
to me her red, pouting lips to be kissed, it is as if I had 
taken a child from her dolls, hoping to make her a compan- 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


i6i 


ion for sober maturity; and as I press upon her lips the 
solicited kiss, I feel as if I were baser than Judas Iscariot, 
for, oh, Hilda! it is of you I am thinking; it is you — you — 
you, always you. When Edith clasps her little white hands 
around my arm and drags me into her silk-draped nest of a 
room and begins, with childish delight, to show me her 
new iove of a bonnet,’ or her ‘latest’ from Worth, or to tell 
me of the ‘lovely’ time she had at Mrs. Littleton’s ‘pink tea,’ 
etc., etc., I think of you, and how different life would have 
been with you.” 

“Sometimes I try to get her interested in those subjects 
which afford me my greatest pleasure, and though she 
seems anxious to ‘humor me,’ as she calls it, she cannot be- 
come interested or refrain from showing her impatience.” 

“One evening I was reading ‘Childe Harold’ aloud to her, 
and was feeling that thrilling rapture which always stirs my 
pulses whenever I come into contact with anything that is 
beautiful. For awhile she tried to listen; then she began to 
yawn and tap her little, satin-slippered foot against the floor, 
and move about in a restless manner, and finally she sprang 
up, ran to me and clasped her hands over my eyes, crying: 
‘Oh, Warner, do let the tiresome old thing alone; I can’t 
bear it, and I want to tell you about the lovely diamond 
cross I saw in a shop window today.’ And again, Hilda, 
I thought of you, and of your enthusiastic love of poetry, 
and for everything grand and ennobling. When poor little 
Edith sits opposite me at table, I look into her pretty, fair, 
childish face and dream of you, with your weird, dark face 
so strangely illumined by that unfathomed soul of yours, 
which shines out through your deep, dark eyes. Oh, Hilda! 
do you think it is a man’s duty to make his life one long, 
living sacrifice, because of one fearful mistake in his youth?” 

“Warner, I have only to answer that question by asking 

you another. If Edith had loved another man before she 
11 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


162 

met you; had loved him with all her heart and soul, but 
finding herself separated from him, had finally married you, 
only to discover that, you failed in rounding out her life, 
that you failed in responding to the wants of her nature, 
should you think it right for her to seek to remedy the one 
fearful mistake of her youth, by giving herself to her old 
lover, when she should meet him?” I asked. 

“By heaven, no!” he cried, angrily. ‘T would kill a 
woman who dishonored my name.” 

“Ah, Warner! how cruelly selfish men are. How true 
are the words of the poet: 

‘The trials from which you, the stronger ones, shrink, 

You ask woman, the weaker one, still to endure; 

You bid her be true to the laws you abjure, 

To abide by the ties you yourselves rend asunder.’ ” 

I said. 

“Hilda, you do not love me and never did. If you loved 
me you would not sit there and reason about things. You 
do not love me. Oh, Hilda! you do not love me or else you 
are afraid — afraid of the' world that cares nothing for you 
and nothing for me. Do you not know that the world cares 
nothing for a stray atom like you or me?” he creied passion- 
ately. 

“Now, Warner, you are mistaken in both your assertions. 
I am not ‘afraid of the world,’ and you do me great injustice 
if you think that such a fear causes me to withhold my con- 
sent to your mad proposal. Let me tell you, Warner, and I 
speak nothing but the truth, I am not afraid of the world ; I 
do not care for the world, and I would never hesitate for one 
moment in choosing between it and love. What is the world 
to me?” 

“But if I were to lose my sense to such a degree as to 
commit that crime, condemned alike by God and man, you 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 163 

would very soon see whether or not the world cared for a 
‘stray atom.’ ” 

“It may care nothing now for you or me, but let me once 
try, ‘With the weak hand of woman to brush it aside,’ and 
you would see how quickly it would sting to death that 
‘stray atom.’ , You might not feel its sting, perhaps, because 
men are not punished (in this world) for their sins as women 
are. But it is not the fear of the world’s sting that fixes the 
‘Gulf between you and me.’ ” 

“ v.^ell, what is it then?” he cried, half sadly, half angrily. 

“There are three things,” I said, ‘and those three things 
stand as impassable barriers between you and me. If I 
could break down those three barriers, I would not keep 
you waiting another moment; but I know that no earthly 
power can ever do that.” 

After my marriage had proved such a failure, such a bit- 
ter disappointment, I had begun to nurse the memory of 
my “lost love,” and to brood and brood over what “might 
have been;” and I had grown to believe that I loved Warner 
Graham, and that I would never love any one else. (How 
woefully the human heart can deceive itself!) 

But I had not the remotest idea of committing the folly 
he was mad enough to propose. 

“What are those three things?” he cried eagerly, as 
though his hope clung to the possibility of removing the 
barriers. 

“It is useless to name them. But the first and most im- 
portant is, my fear of losing God and heaven,” I said 
solemnly. 

“Oh, hang it, Hilda! it is that religion of yours,” he said 
with all a man’s impatience in his voice. “You always were 
too religious for a world like this.” 

In spite of the tragical scene through which we were pass- 
ing, I had to smile when he spoke of me being “too re- 


164 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


ligious for this world;” one cannot be too religious for a 
world like this. It rather strikes me that one must needs 
have an immense amount of religion to carry one safely 
through “life’s quicksands” and “life’s snares.” 

But the smile was a fatal one; it seemed to infuriate him, 
for he sprang at me from where he was sitting, caught me 
rudely by the shoulder, drew me to him, looked at me with 
tawny, flaming eyes, then hissed between his clenched 
teeth : 

“God! I am tempted to* — yes, I am tempted to make 
you submit to my proposal, you little devil.” 

My first impulse was to turn from him with scorn and 
contempt, but after one look into his passion-pale face, I 
felt assured that gentle measures were -wisest, until this 
momentary madness should have passed. 

Looking up, I said, with a little quiver in my voice: 

“Warner, I did not think you could hurt a woman — espe- 
cially the woman who once loved you so dearly; don’t you 
know that cruel grip of yours hurts my tender flesh?” 

I saw his face lose some of its hardness; he relaxed his 
hold on my shoulder, and said in a hoarse whisper: 

“Hilda, you are half devil and half saint.” 

“You are the first person who was ever shrewd enough 
to see me in my true character,” I said, a little bitterly, “but 
I think it is not very polite of you to tell me your flattering 
opinions.” 

“Never mind about that now. What I want to know is 
this: will you listen to reason or not? I am convinced that 
you love me; nothing you could say would change my be- 
lief.” 

“Very well, then, I will spare myself the trouble,” I said, 
quietly; “and I am perfectly willing to listen to reason, but 
Warner, it is not reason for you to act and talk as you are 
doing today. I cannot think as you do about this matter, 


LIFE—AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


165 


and when you are calmer you will be sorry that you yielded 
to such ignoble passions. Now let us put an end to this 
over-long interview.” 

“lam only sorry that I did not seduce you when you and 
I were engaged, then you would have had to marry me; 
then you would never have let that infernal pride of yours 
stand between us ; today you would have been my wife,” he 
cried, flaring out again into sudden passion. 

“You could never have succeeded, sir,” I said, indig- 
nantly, “and let me tell you, Warner Graham, I have yielded 
to my weakness in listening to you thus far, but if you think 
I will tolerate such speeches, you flatter yourself. I ought 
to have left you before now; it was wrong and sinful of me 
to listen to you at all, but I thought it best to discuss this 
subject with you, and settle it once for all; but I will not re- 
main here to listen to such words. When you told me of 
your disappointments, I listened to you with pity and sym- 
pathy, for compassion is the keynote to my nature ; but when 
you insult me by such remarks as you have just been guilty 
of, it only serves to harden my heart against you.” 

“Well, Hilda, it is nothing but the truth, dearest; I do 
wish it, and I could have done it; any man can seduce the 
girl who loves him, if he chooses to; thousands of them do 
so, and it is only due to the honor of men that ” 

^^The ho7ior of meiif' I cried, mockingly. “What do 
men know of honor, when it is a question of their passions? 
Brutus was an honorable man, yet he slew his dearest friend. 
Launcelot was an honorable man, yet he dishonored the 
wife of the man who trusted him above all the other knights. 
Ah, Warner! I am bitterly disappointed in you; never talk 
to me again of the ‘honor of men.’ ” 

“What else, then, do you suppose it is, Hilda, that saves 
the girls of America from utter ruin? They are absolutely 
at the mercy of men. They are allowed to be alone, for 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


1 66 

hours at a time, with men of whose morals they know 
nothing. What saves them, if it is not the honor of men?” 

“I dare say, we do trust too freely to tlie virtue, the high 
principles, the innate modesty of our girls, and to the 
chivalry of our men,” I said, for I felt the justice of his 
words. 

“Yes; for men forget their chivalry and their honor where 
love is concerned.” 

“That is a wrong doctrine,” I said, “for, if a man loves 
truly, he will value too highly the honor of the woman to 
sully it, otherwise it is not love, but a baser passion.” 

“Call it what you will, but it is the strongest of all man’s 
passions, and sweeps down every obstacle which stands be- 
tween it and its object. You have read enough and seen 
enough to know that some of the world’s grandest, most 
honorable men have sacrificed honor, wealth, position, 
everything for love, and that many a good, pure woman has 
turned aside from what we call the ‘path of virtue’ to walk 
hand in hand through life with him, who is her soul’s mate. 
Ah, Hilda! you have never loved me, and all these years 
I have been nourishing, in my heart, a dream — an idle 
dream. If you loved me you would put your hand in mine, 
and let me lead you where I would. You would forget your 
religion, your God — everything but your love. I know the 
nature of women like you, Hilda; you are one of those 
women, who, if they ever love, will love with such passion 
as to barter heaven and risk hell’s fiercest fire for the sake 
of their love. Some day you will learn the truth of what 
I say.” 

“Warner, I would never commit the crime you speak of 
so lightly, even if I were an infidel, believing in nothing, 
for I am convinced, by all my observations of life, that 
women invariably lose the love of the men for whom they 
have forfeited God and the world and their own self respect. 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


167 


But I do believe in God, and a just God; I believe in right 
and wrong; I believe in heaven and hell, and I tell you now, 
I shall not barter my poor, little, slim chance of heaven for 
the love of any man. No man is worth such a sacrifice. 
No man is worth that deathless agony which falls to the lot 
of dost women.’ ” 

“You cannot make me believe you are so selfish. You 
speak like that because you have never really loved. If 
love should ever come to you — ah, Hilda! remember what 
I have told you. The mistake I have made was in thinking 
that you loved me; and since you do not love me, it is 
useless to plead with you longer. But I cannot forget you; 
I can never cease to love' you. Do not leave me, Hilda, 
without telling me that you forgive me.” 

“You promise me you will never mention love to me 
again?” I asked. 

“I cannot promise that. If heaven should ever give per- 
mission, by making us free, I should break such a promise. I 
should come back to you, Hilda, and I should try to make 
you love me.” 

“Well, but as long as we are not free? Promise, or I shall 
not forgive you,” I insisted. 

“I promise,” he said, sadly. “And you are quite sure 
now, that you forgive me.” 

“Quite sure. Have you forgotten that ‘The noblest ven- 
geance is to forgive?’ And now I must leave you. So 
good-bye,” I said. 

“Good-bye, Hilda; don’t be angry with me. I was mad, 
but the madness is gone now, and I will never annoy you 
again. Place your hand here in mine, and tell me once 
more that you forgive me,” he said, pleadingly. 

“I forgive you,” I said, laying my hand in his. 

“And is this the finale?” he asked, sadly, as his long, white 
fingers closed over mine, while his dark eyes looked deep 


i68 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


down into my soul, as if they would pierce into the darkest 
recess of that ‘haunted chamber,’ which the poet claims to 
be in every heart. 

“It is,” I said, earnestly, and left him. 


CHAPTER XXVI. 


“So near together lie their paths, so near! 

And yet they dare not pause for one brief space 
To meet and greet each other face to face, 

Lest in that swift, sweet interchange appear 
Their paradise denied; a higher sphere 
Than this dull level of the common place. 

Where toil and duty, hold in firm embrace 
Life’s all, from hour to hour, from year to year. 

Too brave for tears, too loyal for regret; 

By ties of honor bound, they live their days. 

While love, unanswered, calls from heart to heart. 
So near their pathways lie, so near! And yet 
The gulf could scarce be wider were their ways 
Ten thousand weary, sunless leagues apart.’’ 

Was it destiny, or the irony of fate, or what, that led 
Paul to return from his wanderings, and induced him to 
make our home in New Orleans? Of all places in the 
world — New Orleans! where Warner Graham had already 
made his home. 

And now it was our fate to meet and pass each other, 
almost daily, but with only a cold, distant bow of recogni- 
tion. Warner knew his own lack of strength, and I could 
not forget that it must be a strong man, indeed, “who trusts 
himself under the hot fire of temptation, when there stands 
an inseparable barrier between him and the woman he loves 
and who loves him.” 

Oh! it is a dreadful sin, of course, for a woman to allow 
169 


170 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


herself to even imagine that she loves other than her own 
lawfully wedded husband ; but, alas ! alas ! there is no law on 
earth that can bind a woman’s heart to the heart of a man 
who neglects her; and “the first need of a young woman is 
to be loved and to love,” and no truer words were ever 
written than those of the poet: 

“The heart left too long to its ravage, in time 
May find weakness in virtue, reprisal, in crime. 

When such thoughts do not come of themselves 
To the heart of the woman neglected, like elves 
That seek lonely places — there rarely is wanting 
Some voice at her side, with an evil enchanting 
To conjure them to her.” 

To add to the danger, Paul, who seemed to be possessed 
by a demon of restlessness, decided to go abroad again, in 
search of material’ for a new book he was writing. And so 
I was left alone once more — alone with my bitter heartache 
— with the terrible knowledge that I had missed that which, 
alone, makes life worth the living to a warm-hearted, loving 
woman. 

I realized the absolute necessity of close application to 
some interesting pursuit. I felt that — 

“I, myself, must mix with action, lest I wither by despair.” 

But— 

“What is that which I should turn to, lighting upon days 
like these? 

Every door is barred with gold and opens but to golden 
keys.” 

But even had I possessed the “golden keys,” social pleas- 
ures and social duties could never have satisfied the long- 
ings of my soul. For years the fire of ambition had been 
consuming me. I wanted to be a writer. I wanted to 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


171 

crown myself “with asphodel flowers, that are wet with the 
dews of nepenthe.” 

My soul longed for the power to clothe in words the 
burning thoughts, born in heart and brain; but I had no 
confidence in myself. I said to myself over and over again, 
that I could write nothing which any one would care to 
read. 

I had plenty of burning thoughts, but they would not 
“step forth in fit, burning words, like so many full-formed 
Minervas, issuing amid flame and splendor from Jove’s 
head.” 

I must do something, but what should it be? 

At last the difficulty was settled for me in a most unex- 
pected way. 

One Sunday afternoon I took the children to Carrolton 
that they might get a breath of sweet, fresh air, and enjoy 
the sight of the flowers and trees and birds. 

In those days Carrolton was a favorite resort for pleasure- 
seekers; at least, it was much more frequented then than 
now. 

Spending an hour or two in Carrolton Garden seems a 
little thing, but as some one has truthfully said, “It is on 
such little things as these that the destinies of our lives 
turn.” 

As the children and I were sauntering along, pausing 
here and there to admire the many beauties of nature and 
art, I noticed a gentleman, sitting on one of the rustic 
benches near by, whose face suddenly aroused some long- 
sleeping memory. 

Just at that moment my little daughter, who was the exact 
reproduction of her mother, and looked like another little 
Hilda Beverly, paused in front of the stranger, who looked 
up from a letter he was reading, and turned to my little girl 
with eyes of questioning wonder. 


172 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


At last he called softly, “Hilda?” 

“Sir?” answered the child, going up to him, for the gen- 
tleman had a good face — a face to be trusted by children 
and dogs. 

“What is your name, little maid?” he asked, putting his 
arm around her and drawing her to him. 

“Hilda Beverly Delamar,” said the child sweetly, looking 
up into the stranger’s face with childlike trust and inno- 
cence. 

“And is that lady your mamma?” indicating me. 

“Yes, sir; do you know my sweet, little mamma?” she 
asked. 

“I knew your mamma when she was a little thing like 
you,” he said, rising and coming toward me. 

“Do you not know me, Hilda? Have you forgotten 
Uncle Ben?” he asked eagerly. 

“Oh! you are Aunt Alice’s boy,” I cried. “I knew your 
face seemed strangely familiar to me. Where did you come 
from? And when did you come? And are you ‘Uncle 
Ben’ yet, or must I call you by the more dignified name of 
Mr. Winfield. 

“Oh! I am ‘Uncle Ben’ yet,” he said, interrupting me be- 
fore I should ask any more questions. “And I came from 
Indiana a year ago.” 

“Why, you have not been living in New Orleans a year, 
have you?” I asked. 

“Yes, quite a year,” he said; “and you? I had no more 
idea of meeting you here than I had of meeting Rider Hag- 
gard’s ‘She.’ ” 

“Humph,” I said, “don’t you think your comparison 
rather far-fetched?” 

“You are the same old Hilda,” he said, laughing, “and 
just as quick ‘to pick a fellow up’ as you used to be.” 

“Are you here on a visit, or do you live here?” he asked. 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


173 


“I live here now; have been here three weeks,” I 
answered. 

“Ah ! that accounts for our not having met before ; I have 
been absent about two weeks, on a visit to friends in the 
North,” he said. 

And then we walked on, chatting of the past and present, 
while the children, glad to be from under maternal re- 
straint, disappeared, in hot chase of a big, golden butter- 
fly. 

Finally I drifted to the subject so near my heart, and told 
him of my intense, burning desire to write; and he had just 
asked me, why I did not try; and was assuring me that I 
could certainly write of life as I had experienced and ob- 
served it, when, on suddenly turning a corner of “ever- 
greens,” what scene should meet our startled eyes, but that 
of a man and woman, quite evidently a lady and gentleman 
— kissing. They were sitting on a rustic bench, in one of the 
little summer houses, and when they saw that their little 
caress had been observed by us, they started away from each 
other’s touch, like the two guilty things they were. We 
passed on, and my friend asked: “Did you see that?” 

“Well, yes,” I replied; “did you notice the woman’s ex- 
pression when she discovered that we had witnessed the 
little osculatory act?” 

“Ah, Hilda, when I tell you that woman has a hus- 
band, you will no longer be surprised at her ‘expression.’ 
That woman has one of tfie best, kindest, noblest of men for 
her husband, yet she does not love him; does not care a 
farthing for him, but loves that man she is now with. I 
have known their terrible secret a long time. She told me 
all about her trouble, and asked my advice about getting 
a divorce, but the law of Lx)uisiana will not grant her a 
divorce, because she can furnish no suitable plea. 

“This world is a strange place,” he added, in a half-mus- 


174 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


ing tone. “Everything seems to be ‘criss-cross’ and all out 
of tune. Now, I know a little woman, as pure as the 
angels, who loves that man dearly; he could have her for 
the asking, and the world could furnish him no sweeter 
wife — but no; he must needs love another man’s wife.’’ 

“Why, how interesting!” I said. “A modern edition of 
Tennyson’s sad but beautiful story. We have a ‘King Ar- 
thur’ in the wronged husband; ‘Queen Guinevere’ in the 
faithless wife; the fair ‘Lily of Astolat’ in the pure maiden of 
hopeless love; is there not some danger of a ‘Modred’ in the 
romance?” 

“You are too much given to levity, Mrs. Delamar,” my 
friend said, with mock gravity. “You should not speak so 
lightly of such a serious subject.” 

“But tell me,” I said, “what do you suppose will be the 
outcome of such an affair?” 

“ ‘A tragedy in high life,’ if it is ever discovered by the 
husband.” 

“Uugh!” I said, with a little shudder, “if I were that 
woman I should feel as if the ‘sword of Damocles’ were 
hanging over my head.” 

“Well, suppose it is hanging over her head, and suppose 
it falls; it may do no greater harm than cleaving asunder 
the marriage bond. Who shrinks from the ‘divorce courts’ 
in this latter part of our boasted nineteenth century? When 
the ‘great ones’ of the earth, who are favored with all the 
good gifts of the gods, set the example, who can blame the 
‘lesser lights’ for following it?” 

“Humph,” I said, shrugging my shoulders, and otherwise 
expressing the strength of my feelings, “the ‘lesser lights’ 
get all the blame, and it isn’t fair or just; but then, there 
is no fairness or justice in this world. The ‘great ones’ of 
the earth, as you call them, have all the good things of life 
lavished upon them, and if fate, in one of her spasmodic 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


175 


impulses, makes an effort to ‘even up’ things a little, by 
allotting them an unhappy marriage, they cry out against 
her decree, and will have none of it. 

“Mrs. Millionaire, who possesses every other good gift 
that the earth can afford, rebels again fate for denying her 
even one gift, she must have all, all; and so she employs the 
hammer, divorce, to strike from her the cruel fetters which 
bind her to misery; and it is all right — all right for Mrs. 
Millionaire. But when Mrs. Poverty, who has none of the 
good gifts, makes so bold as to use that dreadful ‘hammer’ 
in her desperate hope of gaining, at least one good gift, it is 
all wrong — shamefully, disgracefully wrong.” 

“Eh? Mrs. Delamar,” said my old friend, “one would 
think you were a pessimist, and embittered against the 
world.” 

“Well, perhaps I am,” I said, and then I laughed at my- 
self, to find how enthusiastic I had allowed myself to be- 
come, and with what warmth I had been discussing the sub- 
ject. 

“But tell me,” I said, “what do you really think of 
divorces?” 

“Oh, I suppose one might call it the poison which serves 
as an antidote for another poison,” he said, evidently pre- 
ferring not to give his real opinion. “And you? What do 
you think of it?” he asked. 

“I think the whole thing is a dreadful, unmitigated evil,” 
I said, in my most determined, uncompromising accents. 

“Spoken like the Hilda of old,” he said, laughingly. 

“Well, I do, and I believe, in the eyes of God it is every 
whit as great a sin for a divorced person to marry again, 
while the husband or wife is living, as it is to take another 
husband or wife, without any divorce at all,” I asserted 
positively. 


176 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


“You always were an extremist, Hilda, and you are as 
hard on poor, erring humanity, as the preachers are.” 

“Devil quoting scripture,” I said, laconically. 

“Oh, no! you would surely practice what you preach,” 
he said, looking at me with a little quizzical smile. 

“No more would I than other preachers do,” I replied, 
laughing. 

“That is a dreadful slam on preachers.' Have you no 
faith in them?” 

“Some of them. But to be serious. Though I believe it 
a sin, I will not say that I would not conynit it; for just as 
‘conscience doth make cowards of us all,’ so love doth make 
fools of us all.” 

“You seem to have a pretty good knowledge of the world, 
for a woman of your age,” he said, looking at me in a serio- 
comic fashion. 

“Studied it,” I said, shortly. 

“Well, then, please answer a few questions forme. Why 
do women allow men to make fools of them? And why will 
they commit those foolish acts that place them in a ‘com- 
promising position,’ to put it lightly.” 

“If I were a Yankee I would answer your question by ask- 
ing you others. Why will men try to make fools of women? 
and why will they persuade women to commit those acts 
which place them in a ‘compromising position?’ ” 

“Because women are weak enough to allow them to do 
so.” 

“A woman’s one great weakness is her love of being 
loved,” I said, “but can men have no compassion — no pity 
for such a weakness?” 

“Men are not built that way,” he said. 

After a long pause, I looked up at him and suddenly 
asked : 

“How is it you have never married?” 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


177 


“Ah! thereby hangs a tale,” he said, looking half-humor- 
ous, half-grave. 

“Oh, do tell it me!” I cried, hoping to gain a store of 
knowledge for my future literary work, should it ever come 
into being. 

“My friend, I can tell you no more than this: 

‘Three things a wise man will not trust: 

The wind, the sunshine of an April day. 

And woman's plighted faith.’ 

“I took that lesson to heart years ago, when I was such 
an ardent admirer of Southey.” 

“Old Southey!” I cried, with pardonable irreverance. 
“He deserves the everlasting animosity of all womankind 
for making such a cynical, hateful speech as that. 

“I’d like to know what might not be said about man and 
his plighted faith?” 

“Come, my little friend, don’t let us grow pugnacious,” 
he said, with mock persuasiveness. 

“I do verily believe you are a misogynist,” I cried, in pre- 
tended horror. 

“What is that?” he asked, assuming an air of great ig- 
norance, “is it something new which the scientific men of 
this progressive age have lately discovered?” 

“Now you are poking fun,” I said, trying to look digni- 
fied. 

“Far from it, my dear,” he said, using the privilege of a 
very old friend, to address me in such a familiar term. 

“Then answer me. Are you not a misogynist?” 

“Not a misogynist, no madam! A misogamist, per- 
haps. You don’t suppose I could be guilty of such rude- 
ness as to acknowledge I am a woman hater in the pres- 
ence of such a charming sample of the sex?” he said, mak- 


12 


178 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


ing a most profound bow, as if he were saluting a Duchess, 
at least. 

“I like praise,” I said, “but I do detest flattery, sir. Don’t 
you know that ‘flattery’ is said to be the ‘devil’s own 
weapon?’ ” 

“Hist!” he cried, looking behind him, first over one shoul- 
der, then the other, his face presenting the most ludicrous 
expression of alarm, “please be more careful how you handle 
the name of his satanic majesty.” 

Thus we chatted gaily, passing away a pleasant hour, 
each putting away out of sight, as it were, for a little while, 
the cares and griefs of life. 

“Frivolous?” 

Well, what of it, if it helps to ease the heart of its bitter 
pain; if it causes us to forget, for one brief space, the un- 
pleasant things of life? 

Just before parting he said, “Have you decided to begin 
your literary career?” 

“Oh, I don’t know,” I cried; “it seems to me I could never 
‘write up’ anything as it should be.” 

“I don’t know why,” he said, “you were always good at 
telling a story; writing one is simply transferring the words 
to paper. I should think all that is necessary is for you 
to be natural, and relate things as you have found them.” 

“Oh! I wish I could have confidence in myself. But I 
know that anything I should write would be so tame, so 
commonplace, so lacking in interest to readers in general. 
What do I know of life’s sensational, fitful fevers? Of 
rascally, villainous men and their plots? Of intriguing 
women, and all such things? What do I know of describ- 
ing beautiful scenery? Of ecstatic flights into realms of 
fancy and imagination?” I asked. 

“Wel-1-1! Leave such things to those writers who do 
know something about them. Heaven knows there is a 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


179 


sufficient number to supply the demand. Besides, we have 
already been surfeited with descriptions of sunsets and beau- 
tiful scenery. If all readers are like myself, they invariably 
skip over such passages. As for ethereal flights; one does 
not care to be kept long floating in mid air, between heaven 
and earth, like Mohammed’s coffin. And as for ‘hair- 
breadth’ escapes, villainous plots, and all the other super- 
exciting stories, we have, already, more than enough. Why 
in the name of everything should a writer want to keep his 
readers on tenter-hooks of suspense; and equally, why 
should a reader allow himself to be kept in such an uncom- 
fortable situation? 

“What is our object in reading books? It is either for 
pleasure, pastime, or improvement. The world is full of 
books that afford neither pleasure nor improvement.” 

“But to write a book requires such a long, long story,” 
I objected. 

“That is a great mistake, and one too many writers are 
guilty of. They seem to think it necessary to draw out 
a story to a most preposterous length. It is a great mis- 
take. Thousands of busy people — men especially — fail to 
read many books on account of their length. When you 
begin to write, make your books short. Say what you have 
to say, and stop.” 

“I will,” said I, laughing heartily at his long speech, 
“ whe7i I begin!' 

“Oh, you’ll begin. You will write your book — you will 
have to. The fire of genius is burning within you, and 
you will have to write, or it will consume you.” 

“Are you laughing at me?” I asked, looking up at him 
with a searching glance. 

“I was never more serious, or more in earnest, in all 
my life. I feel convinced that you ca7i write a book, if you 


i8o 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


will; and I am truly anxious to have you do so. Will you 
promise me to begin soon?” he asked. 

‘T can’t promise,” I said. “You know I would scorn to 
write a book simply for money, or for fame. Of course, I 
would like both; but if I believed I could produce a good 
book, at least a book that would teach one good lesson, I 
would do so if I knew I should never realize one cent, or 
receive a word of commendation, so great is my love for 
‘writing.’ ” 

“Well, take my advice, and write of life as you have found 
it. Allow yourself to be natural and simple, and avoid 
straining after the sensational.” 

Spending an hour with an old friend changed my whole 
life for me. 

After I once begun to write, everything presented a new 
aspect to me. I observed many things which had never 
before attracted my attention. Perchance it was only a 
trifle, but it was a part that went to make up the whole. 

At one time it was the pretty, pink, shell-like ear of a 
lovely, woman ; at another, the prim airs and sayings of some 
inexpressibly funny “old maid,” who presented a living 
picture of Dickens’ inimitable caricatures; or perchance it 
was only a little pickaninny, who, having spent his nickel for 
a cake, and eaten it (the cake, not the nickel), stands crying 
to have his “nickel back,” while he digs his little black fists 
into his streaming eyes, until he has two little muddy rivulets 
perambulating down his dusky cheeks. Or perhaps it was a 
pitiful, sorrowful scene of two dear little schoolmates, mar- 
ring their sweet young faces, in a childish squabble over 
some trivial thing. Or only a branch of crimson “trumpet 
flowers” (those beautiful blossoms so pleasant to look upon , 
so deadly poisonous to the touch, fit emblems of the “blos- 
soms of passion , gay and luxuriant flowers,” so bright and 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


i8i 


full of fragrance. “But they beguile us and lead us astray, 
and their odor is deadly”). 

Even reading, the one great pleasure of my life, became a 
new delight, and I invested each character with a natural- 
ness that made it seem a living, breathing being. 

And I began to make a study of life^ — of human nature — 
as I had never studied it before. It is a wonderful subject, 
and a sad one withal. 


CHAPTER XXII. 


“Now is done thy long day’s work; 

Fold thy palms across thy breast, 

Fold thine arms, turn to thy rest. 

Let them rave. 

Shadows of the silver birch 
Sweep the green that folds thy grave. 

Let them rave.” 

Twice during my husband’s absence, I found myself alone 
with Warner Graham. 

At our first meeting he never mentioned love or the pain- 
ful past. The second and last time we were alone together 
poor Warner was beyond the power of love’s cruel jests. For 
years and years he had been a brave fireman, and at last 
in trying to save other lives from a cruel death he received 
an injury that cost him his own. 

As life was fast ebbing away, he sent for me. I could not 
refuse to obey the dying, and I did not want to refuse. His 
wife sent her carriage for me with the urgent request that 
I should come at once — and I went. She knew all about 
Warner’s love for me in our young days. 

Poor Edith! She meet me at the door, her face red and 
disfigured with much weeping, and fell upon my breast, and 
with her arms around me, she wept and sobbed, and told 
me of the cruel accident that would soon rob her of her 
darling. 

(“Ah!” I whispered to my heart, “a sadder fate than death 
182 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


183 


robbed me of my darling, for I could have borne a ‘parting 
in death' with far less pain than a ‘parting in life.' ") 

After her passionate grief had spent itself she led me to 
his bedside, and, bending over his almost lifeless form, she 
touched his pale brow tenderly and said: “Hilda is here, 
my darling." 

He opened his dying eyes and looked at the two women 
standing there. 

“Hilda," he said faintly, and the sound of his voice calling 
me for the last time in the old, sweet, familiar tones, thrilled 
me through my whole being, “how good of you to come; 
but you were always good to everyone but me; and now 
you are good to me." 

“Don't talk like that, Warner. I am not good to any one; 
I was never good," I cried piteously, while my face filled 
with sadness, and my eyes grew dark and heavy with the 
weight of tears I was struggling to keep back. 

“I am nearly gone, Hilda," he whispered, faintly, after 
a long pause, in which he had lain with closed eyes, showing 
no sign of life save by his fluttering breath, and “now and 
again" a faint, gentle pressure of his fingers on my hand. 

“Is there no hope?" I asked, with quivering voice. 

“None," he said. “Can't you see that I am nearly gone? 
And it is better so." 

“Edith, give me my stimulant, dear," he whispered. 

She brought his medicine, and said to me, “Give it to 
him, please, Hilda. I cannot bear to stay in here a moment 
longer; it is killing me to see him die." 

I took the bottle from her hand, prepared the medicine, 
and put my arm around his shoulders to raise him. (Edith 
had fled from the room.) As I held him up, while he slowly 
swollowed the powerful stimulant, I felt a great shudder pass 
through his frame — then he laid his head against me and 
said, “Hilda, I wish I might die here in your arms," 


i84 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


“Oh, Warner!” I said, “that must not be; it is Edith's 
right and we cannot take it from her.” 

“Ah, Hilda! I have not been happy — neither have you — 
you will not deny it now since I am so near death ; the truth 
cannot harm you now. Love is a wonderful mystery, Hilda. 
I have a good, sweet wife, and you have an honest, earnest, 
moral husband. I don’t know why it is, little woman, but 
I have never been able to love any one but you; and you? 
Well, after I am dead it will be easier for you to forget the 
old, sad love, and learn to love your husband, just as widows 
forget their ‘dead loves’ and wed again. I tried to keep my 
promise, and did keep it in letter if not in spirit. Your 
sweet, firm faith in your duty gave me a new view of life 
and its ties of honor. Though I have been a great sinner, 
your God is able to save even me. I shall trust in Him. 
Perhaps, in giving my life for others I have pleased Him 
who gave His life for the world. Do you remember, Hilda, 
how you used to plead with me to withdraw from the ‘com- 
pany’? You always said I would lose my life some day in 
its service.. But, oh, how proud I was to show you the beau- 
tiful gold medal which was awarded to me that time for 
saving the lives of so many women and children ; — and you 
were proud of it, too, Hilda. But I must not let my mind 
dwell any longer upon earthly things. My time is short. 
I sent for you to tell you what your faith and purity had 
done for me — and — to tell — you — good-bye,” he said, gasp- 
ingly, for his breath was beginning to fail again. 

“Kiss me, Hilda; kiss me just once before I go,” he said 
pleadingly — and I kissed him. 

Was it a sin? Well, I am not posing as a model of 
prudence and virtue. And who shall condemn me? “Let 
him that is without sin cast the first stone.” 


CHAPTER XXIII. 


‘T want you, my darling, my darling; 

With its yearnings my very heart aches. 

The load that divides us weighs harder — 

I shrink from the jar that it makes. 

Old sorrows rise up to beset me. 

Old doubts make my troubles their own ; 

Oh, come through the darkness and save me. 

For I am alone.'’ 

Poor Warner died — and that was the end of that chapter. 
For weeks I was like the poor, half-crazed creature in 
“Maud" (I am partial to Maud), and I kept crying in the 
bitterness of my loneliness and misery, “Oh, God, let love 
come to me ! Let love ‘sweeten my life before I die,’ 

‘I know it the one bright thing to save 
My yet young life in the wilds of time, 

Perhaps from madness, perhaps from crime. 
Perhaps from a selfish grave.' ’’ 

At last I wrote to Paul to come home to me. My letter was 
like a cry of agony from a wounded animal; it touched the 
tender spot in Paul’s heart, and he came. 

But a few weeks after Paul’s return home, his health be- 
gan to fail, and we decided to spend a few months among the 
pines of Blank, a little town not far from the scene of 
many old memories. 

I had not been settled long in my new home before the 
ladies organized a sort of “Literary and Sewing Society." 
The society was something of a departure from the usual 
- 185 


i86 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


conventional affair, inasmuch as the members were required 
to prepare and read original stories taken from real life, 
with an object to encourage and improve the literary ef- 
forts of any who might happen to be geniuses in embryo, 
and to study life. We met once a week at the house of 
some member. At each meeting, one member who had 
been appointed the previous week, read her story, while the 
other members sewed or made fancy work, the proceeds 
of all sales to be devoted to “charity.” 

After the reading of the story, all the members were 
required to discuss the subject and give their ideas “pro 
and con.” I requested, as a special favor, to be exempted 
from the story-telling, and to be allowed the use of such 
MS. as should bear upon the subject of a book which 
I had begun to write. Permission was cheerfully given. 
It is not my intention to give more than two or three of 
the stories here. As they are true stories, which came 
within the knowledge of those who were connected with 
my life, I give them because they were instrumental in 
helping to form my opinion of Life. 


CHAPTER XXIV. 


STORY ONE. 

“Then gently scan your brother-man, 

Still gentler, sister-woman, 

Though they may gang a kenning wrang. 

To step aside is human.” 

One day as I sat by my open window, watching the 
swirls of gorgeous autumn leaves, and crooning a soft, 
dreamy lullaby to my sleeping babe, I noticed several large 
vans of handsome furniture unloaded at the door of the 
vacant house which was separated from my own, only by 
a small plat and low fence. 

I wondered who was to be my neighbor, and waited ex- 
pectantly for her arrival; but though I waited till the 
“purple twilight had deepened into night — and, one by 
one, the ‘forget-me-nots of the angels’ ” had blossomed out 
in the “Infinite meadow of heaven,” I saw no one^ — save 
servants and hirelings — enter the house. 

With the infallible curiosity of my sex I was eager for 
a glimpse of my new neighbor. 

When my husband came home I said, “Lorrimer, do you 
know who is going to occupy the house next door? Some 
one has rented it, and I am so glad, because I am lonely 
and afraid all the time when you are gone. It will be 
so nice to have a neighbor,” I rattled on, not waiting 
for an answer to my question. As soon as I paused, my 
husband said: 

“Yes, Mildred, I know who is to occupy the house next to 
187 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


1 88 

us, but I am sorry to tell you, my dear, she can never be a 
neighbor of yours.” 

“Why? I should like to know,” I cried, in quick amaze- 
ment, “for I am sure they are nice people, whoever they are. 
The lady must certainly be a woman of education and refine- 
ment, for there are books, birds, flowers and a magnificent 
piano, and many other indications of culture and elegance.” 

I was young and innocent, and knew but little of the 
evils of life, and my woman’s soul approved of all these 
beautiful things — and, like all the world, I was judging by 
appearances. 

“What do you know?” I asked again, as my husband 
remained silent. 

“I don’t like to tell you,” he said. “It is a sad, 
pitifully sad story, and I am sorry for the woman; I 
think she is more sinned against than sinning, and yet, I 
could not be willing for my wife to associate with a woman 
who wears upon her soul the brand of the ‘Scarlet Let- 
ter.’ ” 

“Oh, Lorrimer!” I cried, sorrowfully, “tell me about 
it! It must be the old, old story of woman’s love and 
faith and trailty — of man’s perfidy and baseness and broken 
vows.” 

“Yes, Mildred, and it is one of the saddest I have 
ever known. You remember Minor Holmes? Well, he 
came to my office today, and told me all about it. Poor 
Minor ! I saw something was weighing heavily upon his 
mind, as soon as he entered the room. After a long 
silence he said, ‘Lorrimer, I have something to tell you; 
you are one of my oldest and best friends, and I think 
it right that I should do so. It is a painful duty I am about 
to perform, but it is one which I dare not disregard. When 
you go home tonight, you will find that the house next to 
yours is occupied. The occupant is a beautiful, refined. 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


189 

educated, cultured woman. Naturally, your wife would 
expect to call as women do, but, alas! my poor Lily is a 
soiled and broken flower. I can not allow my old friend’s 
wife to do in ignorance that which would injure her own 
fair name, and which — if she is like the majority of 
women — she would shrink from doing, as she would shrink 
from the touch of a leper.” 

“ T tell you this much for your sake and the sake of 
your wife, and now I must tell you the rest for my poor 
darling’s sake, that you may know she is not as vile as the 
world thinks her.” 

“ ‘You know, Lorrimer, how most young men are, and 
I am not different from the rest, so one night I went to that 
magnificent ‘palace of sin’ on D — street, and there I met 
the one woman in all the world for me.” 

“ ‘The moment I looked into her face I knew that Nature 
had meant her for better things. ‘Some faces show the 
last act of a tragedy in their regard,’ — and that face was one 
of them. Lorrimer, you may think me a mad-man, but I 
looked, and loved. When I first entered the room I sig- 
nalled her out from all the other inmates, because of her 
gentle, modest demeanor — and as soon as we were alone 
in her room, I led her to a divan, and sitting down beside 
her, I looked straight into her eyes, and said, ‘Answer me 
one question, please: Why are you in such a place as 
this?’ For one instant she looked at me with frightened 
eyes — the blood swept over her neck and face and brow in 
crimson waves — then receded, leaving her whiter than the 
robe she wore — and then she burst into tears.” 

“ ‘Oh, Lorrimer! never did I see a woman weep as she 
wept. Never did I hear such shuddering, convulsive, soul- 
racking sobs. I could do nothing but sit and gently stroke 
her beautiful bowed head, as one might do in quieting a 
sick, nervous, feverish child. As I looked at her, I could 


190 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


not help wondering how so fragile a flower could live 
tlijrough such a storm. When it had spent itself, and she 
lay back against the dark velvet cushions, her face was 
like a rain-drenched lil}i — ^the flower whose name she bore.” 

“ ‘Do you often weep like this?’ I asked, taking both her 
little trembling hands in mine, and pressing them tenderly 
against my lips.” 

“ ‘Almost every night,’ she said, ‘but tonight it was 
worse, for something about you stirred my soul to its 
bitterest depths, and my broken heart seemed to break 
again.’ ” 

“ ‘Oh, sir!’ she cried, in a voice of desperate pain, ‘I 
loathe this life — I loathe myself — I live in daily, hourly tor- 
ment^ — I long to leave it — to break away from it, but what 
can I do? — where could I go? I could never get away 
from myself. I could never get away from my sin ; it would 
find me out — it would follow me the world over — it would 
haunt my life and hound my foot-steps.’ ” 

‘“Tell me all about it,’ I pleaded; ‘perhaps I can help 
you.’ For a long while she hesitated as if she could not 
bring herself to talk about the terrible tragedy. But after 
much persuasion and gentle encouragement, she told me 
the whole indescribably pathetic story. Little by little she 
told it, stopping often to gather new courage and strength, 
ever and anon burying in the cushions her crimsoning and 
paling face, to hide her shame and agony. She said that 

her parents, who were very wealthy, had sent her to 

Institute to finish her education. One Friday she had 
been allowed to go home with one of her school-mates; 
there she had been introduced to a young man who was 
visiting her school-mate’s brother.” 

“A day or two after her return to the school, this man 
called, and representing himself to the principal as her uncle 
asked to see her. As she walked into the parlor he came 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


191 


forward with out-stretched hand, and smiling, pleading 
face. Before she could recover from her surprise, he mur- 
mured seductively, ‘Forgive me, oh! pray forgive me^ — I 
could not help coming — my heart drew me here; like 
Romeo, I have fallen in love with you at first sight; do 
not be angry with me; surely you cannot be angry with me 
for loving you.” 

“And thus, in the damnable way men have, he pleaded 
and persuaded, cajoled and flattered until he blunted the 
keen edge of her conscience, and gained a half-reluctant 
consent from her, that she would play the role of niece to 
deceive the principal. She had grown so weary of the 
nun-like seclusion of the school, and she thought it would 
be very pleasant to receive the calls of such an ‘uncle,’ to 
listen to his tale of love and his pretty, flattering speeches. 
After the first shock, at the thought of the wrong, the 
scheme had appealed to her daring, audacious, romantic 
nature. Well, Lorrimer, you are a man of the world, you 
can guess the sequel. She soon gave her young, innocent 
heart to the enthusiastic lover. And you know how utterly 
and unquestioningly women trust the men they love. 
Ninety-nine times out of a hundred that very trust brings 
the curse upon them. At last, the man persuaded her to 
run away with him. He told her that his business would 
not allow him to remain any longer, and that even if he 
could remain it was impossible to see her often enough to 
satisfy his great love. He swore that he could not go away 
without her, and that he must go. He begged her to say 
nothing to any one, for then they would surely be sep- 
arated, because her parents would never agree to her mar- 
rying a poor man. 

“He persuaded her to slip out at night and meet him at 
a certain place ; that he would take her to the next city, and 
there they would be married, and then no one could part 


192 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


them. Oh, Lorimer, I cannot tell you all the details of 
that devil’s diabolical plan. He was one of those men — 

“ ‘With smooth dissimulation skilled to grace, 

A devil’s purpose with an angel’s face.’ 

“Poor Lily! at last she consented, like thousands oi 
thoughtless women have done throughout all ages, to com- 
mit a deed which she knew would be disapproved by her 
parents, her friends, her teacher, and all the world. 

“With the thoughtlessness of an innocent child, she 
placed her hand in that of the man she loved, and blindly 
let him lead her across the ‘invisible boundary between 
moral light and darkness.’ She followed where he led — 
and he led her, a ‘pure, innocent, trusting girl, into that 
boundless meadow of sin, where the poisonous poppy flow- 
ers of love, bud and blossom and intoxicate the human 
butterflies that flutter about them for a brief hour — then 
swoon and die. 

“That night as the poor child held her breath and listened 
for the soft signal of her lover, no guardian angel uttered 
a word of warning to save her from the dreadful fate await- 
ing her. It is needless, my friend, to give you the details 
of the trip — how he hurried her on, giving her no time to 
collect her senses, or know where she was going, or by 
what routes; how he put her off, from hour to hour, with 
one excuse and then another, why the marriage ceremony 
could not be yet performed, and how at last they stopped 
at a strange city and he took her to a place which he told 
her was a fine boarding house, where she was to stay all 
night and rest, and in the morning they w’ould be married.” 

“After many protestations of his deathless love, he kissed 
her good-night and left her, promising to come early the 
next morning. She went to the room assigned her, and 
being greatly fatigued by her long journey, was soon lost 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


193 


to her surroundings in a deep refreshing sleep. Nothing 
happened to disturb her, and next morning she arose early, 
attired herself for the coming of the bridegroom — who 
never came. 

As hour after hour dragged its weary length away the 
joyous smiles left her lips, the roses faded from her face, 
the light died out of her loving eyes. 

“Slowly — very slowly — the hideous truth began to dawn 
upon her pure heart and mind. She saw among the in- 
mates, acts which shocked her innate, womanly modesty; 
she heard words issue from dainty, luscious lips, such as 
she had never heard before in all her young, sweet life. 
She saw blase, dissipated men coming and going at all 
hours of the day.’' 

“Finally, realizing that she was in one of those houses 
of which, she remembered in a vague sort of way, she had 
heard, she fled to the proprietress, threw herself upon her 
knees, at the woman’s feet, and prayed and implored her 
to save her — to send her away somewhere, anywhere, away 
from the horrible atmosphere of that dreadful place. The 
poor child did not even know what city she was in, or how 
far she was from home and friends, and she hadn’t a cent 
of money with her, and did not know how to work at any- 
things which would command wages.” 

“The heartless, soulless demon — unworthy the name of 
woman — looked down upon the beautiful, golden-haired 
girl kneeling at her feet, pleading for mercy, pleading for 
salvation from a fate more cruel than death — looked upon 
her beauty, calculating its money worth to herself, and 
answered her with a cold, harsh, grating laugh that froze 
the girl’s blood with fright and horror.” 

“She felt in her heart that she would find no mercy 
there, so she sprang to her feet, determined to rush out into 
the darkness of a strange city, rather than barter her soul 

13 


194 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


in a house of shame. But many hands caught her, dragged 
her into her room and locked her in. In vain the poor 
unwilling captive beat against her prison door until her 
delicate, blue-veined hands were bruised and crimsoned 
with her own blood. In vain she screamed for help, until 
her voice died away, a hoarse gurgle in her throat. The 
only answer she received was the silvery, mocking laugh- 
ter of ‘lost women,’ revelling with the husbands and lovers 
of waiting, trusting wives and maids. And those men — 
men who had wives and daughters and sisters — men who 
would have shed the blood of a brother-man, who would 
have risked death and braved hell in pursuit of vengeance 
on any who should have dared to sully the honor of their 
‘fair ones’ — sat there, drinking, smoking, carousing, pol- 
luting their lips with the sensuous kisses of abandoned 
women — and smiled whenever the piercing, agonizing 
screams of that tortured, breaking heart pierced the din 
of their revelry.” 

“O God! — God!! I long to crush out the whole vile 
tribe — to sweep from off the face of the earth, the last 
trace and vestige of such hellish places, and their cruel, 
wicked inmates, whenever I remember what my darling 
suffered there.” 

“All night long she bore the nameless, indescribable 
horror of her awful fate, vainly racking heart and brain 
for some plan of escape. All the next day she struggled 
madly to free herself from her terrible captivity — but no 
one came near her; no morsel of food, or drop of water 
was offered her. She was to be starved into submission.” 

“ ‘Hunger is a great subduer,’ and though she preferred 
death to shame, starvation is so slow and so painful.” 

“Night came again, and utterly exhausted, she threw 
herself across her bed and fell into a troubled sleep, from 
which she was repeatedly aroused by the sound of her 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


195 


own sobs and convulsive shudders, as she lived over, in 
her dreams, all the horrors of the past two days.” 

“At last her senses seemed to leap suddenly into painful 
activity. She opened her eyes quickly and by the bright 
light of the moon’s radiant beams she saw a man standing 
beside her. She lay quiet, shocked into a sort of stupor, 
and looked at him. He was grandly tall, and beautiful of 
face, and as he looked at her with tender, pleading eyes, 
his lips parted slightly and he sighed — a long, slow, heavy 
sigh. Her first feeling was that she was dead and that 
the pale, sorrowful face bending over her was the face of 
one of the martyred saints, whose pictures she had long 
adored. Then the face lost its saintly beauty and filled up 
with a look of passion that made it Antinous-like; the 
quivering sigh died away like a breath of air that ‘moans 
itself mute.’ ” 

“As the handsome face bent nearer, nearer — the horrifiefl 
woman threw up her hands to ward him off — then swooned 
away, from fright and exhaustion.” 

“Ah, Lorimer — when Lily came back to consciousness 
she was no longer a pure, unsullied flower.” 

“ ‘O God! Can such crimes be, and not blot the sun 
from out the heavens^ or draw God’s direst vengeance on 
this sinful earth.’ ” 

“It makes my soul sick to think of it, Lorimer.” 

“ ‘Well, what became of the dastardly coward who be- 
trayed her?” my husband asked. 

“Oh! he returned, after an absence of two weeks, ex- 
pecting to enjoy the fruits of his sin, but Lily’s love for 
him had turned to loathing, and she spurned his evil love 
and drove him from her presence with such bitter re- 
proaches that he never returned. 

“ ‘Why didn’t you try to persuade her to go back to her 
mother?’ 


196 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


“ ‘Her mother was dead. The shock and g^rief of her 
daughter’s shame killed her. Lily saw a notice of her death 
in a paper, and she would not consent to go back to her 
father. She wanted him to believe her dead. All search 
for a trace of her soon after she ran away from school had 
proved futile.” 

“After she had finished her story, I told her of my love 
for her and begged her to marry me, and let me teach her 
to forget her miserable past.” 

“ ‘Ah,’ she said, with a sad little smile, ‘nothing can ever 
make me forget the ‘past;’ it is burned into my soul with 
living fire. You are kind and generous, and the only 
good man, except my father, that I have ever known — but 
I cannot marry you, it would be a useless sacrifice on your 
part.” 

“When I insisted, she said that her heart was broken, 
and she would not be with me long enough to compensate 
me for the loss of old friends, and my social position.” 

“I went to see her again and again and implored her to 
marry me. But she insisted that she could not drag me 
down. She had found out all about my family — how proud 
they are, and how high they stand, and refused to accept 
the sacrifice. ‘Why, Minor, you know your father would 
disinherit you,’ she argued. ‘I will not live long, and you 
would be poor and disgraced, all tor nothing.” 

“Then I persuaded her to let me give her a home where 
she could be quiet, and free from the loathsome presence 
of degraded women. She agreed to my plan, with the 
proviso that I should never come to see her by day, or let 
any one see me visit her. And after much persuasion she 
promised me if she lived a year, then she would marry me.” 

“And now, Lorimer, you know all there is to be told,” 
he said, sadly. 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


197 


“Minor, you do not mean to tell me that you intend to 
marry the woman?” 

“Why not?” he asked, savagelyi — his palid face and 
bloodless lips giving ample evidence of the white heat of 
anger which had sprung suddenly within him. 

“Do you not know that you would forfeit your high so- 
cial position, lose the esteem of all your friends and sink 
to her level? High as you are, rich as your family is, you 
could never raise such a wife. Society would not receive 
her.” 

“Society be damned!” he cried, angrily. “And see here, 
Lorrimer, my friend, don’t utter such words as those again. 
I cannot bear them, even from you. My Lily is as pure 
as any woman on God’s earth; she was a victim of our 
sex’s diabolical passions; she was an unwilling inmate of 
that gilded hell, and even if she had gone there of her own 
free will — a woman has as much right, under the law of 
heaven, to frequent such a place as you or I have. What 
is man, that he should set himself up as a judge of 
woman? Poor Lily, as she is, is a thousand times purer 
than many of those very women who constitute society. 
But we will not discuss that question. I only want to add 
that, while I do not expect your wife to be neighborly with 
my stricken darling, I ask it as a great favor that she will 
do nothing to wound the poor, bleeding heart.” 

“Oh! you may rest easy on that score, Minor, for I 
have the tenderest-hearted little wife in the world.’ “And 
now, wifie mine,” said my husband, “you know the whole 
story, and why she cannot be your neighbor.” 

“I suppose so,” I said, indignantly, regardless of the 
sense of my expression, “but it is a cruel cruel, cruel shame 
that a woman who has been made an unwilling victim of 
man’s brutal lust, should be ostracized and doomed to life- 
long desolation and misery — should be left to grieve her 


198 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


heart out, to brood over her agony, to bear alone her 
bitter, bitter heartache — her desperate remorse. What a 
dreadful punishment! — what an unjust punishment! Never 
to have a woman friend, never to hear a kind, sympathetic, 
tender word from woman’s lips. It is not Christ-like — and 
we profess to be followers of the meek and lowly Savior, 
who said to the fallen woman, ‘Thy sins are forgiven thee; 
go, and sin no more.’ That is what we ought to do. Oh! 
I am ashamed to call myself a Christian! Oh, Lorrimer! 
do you think that women ought to hold themselves aloof 
from the ‘erring ones,’ like the selfrighteous Pharisee of 
ancient times? If ever a repentant Magdalen is saved, will 
I, or any of my sister- women have the honor of having 
been the instrument of salvation?” 

‘‘I fear me not,” said my husband, gently; “but you 
know, Mildred, you cannot reform the world, dearest, and 
it is useless to grieve over what you cannot help.” 

“That sounds like a man!” I cried, in my hot, unreas- 
oning indignation. “Are all men wicked and selfish, Lor- 
rimer?” 

“No,” my husband answered, “there are some good men, 
like Minor Holmes — but they are few and far between.” 

“Yes,” I cried, “and there is no way to tell the good 
ones from the wicked, bad ones, and a woman’s only safety 
lies in guarding against all of them.” 

My husband looked at me with a little twinkle in his 
eyes and said playfully: “You are a wise little woman, but 
I must leave you now; club meets tonight,” and he was off. 

Next day as I sat by my window again (screened by 
curtains from view of my neighbor, as I shall call her), 
watching my baby as he toddled about on the strip of 
grass, I saw my neighbor go to the fence, fall on her knees, 
stretch her thin, white hands out to my baby, and with 
soft and tender words coax him to her; then she caught 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


199 


his little hands in hers and kissed them passionately. The 
same little scene was enacted every day, and sometimes I 
could see that tears were dropping fast on baby’s golden 
curls. 

Well, the poor young creature lived on for several 
weeks, and no one was ever seen to enter her yard, except 
the servants. She used to spend hours playing the saddest, 
sweetest music I ever heard; then one day I missed her. 
She did not come to the fence to cover the baby’s hands 
with passionate kisses. There was no music, and the 
house seemed as silent as the grave. I said to my cook: 
“The lady next door must be away from home.” 

“She sick.” my cook answered. 

“How do you know, Chloe?” I asked. 

“Kase ’m, her cook dun tol’ me so.” 

Oh, how I longed to go to the poor, sick, desolate 
creature! But I dared not disregard society’s convention- 
alisms. I sent my servant over with some “little dainty” 
and a message, that if she needed me and wanted me to 
come, I would do so. She sent me her grateful thanks, 
but said she would not think of such a thing as allowing me 
to make so great a sacrifice for her sake. 

Next evening about twilight my cook ran into my 
room, with eyes goggling and her black, shiny skin ashen- 
hued, and said: “Miss Millie! Miss Millie! fur Gawd’s sake 
cum ’ere an’ do sup’n fur de po’ creetur; she am sho’ 
neahly daid; her awms an’ laigs is col’ up to de elbows an’ 
knees.” 

“Run, Chloe,” I said, “and ask her to let you go and tell 
Mr. Holmes to come.” 

She must have known she was dying, for she agreed 
to send for her friend. He came and sat by her until she 
fell asleep. Just before she closed her eyes she told him she 
knew she was dying — that she was not afraid, and was 


200 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


glad to die and leave a world that had brought her only 
sorrow. She said that she saw her mother standing just 
within the “golden gates” and that they were “ajar” for her. 
As soon as she was sleeping quietly the young man went 
back to his own home, thinking she was much better. 
Next morning, when he came to see her, she was dead. 

When the truth burst upon him his anguish was some- 
thing terrible. It nearly killed him (he told Lorrimer) to 
think that his poor, little, timid, gentle Lily had gone 
down to death alone, utterly alone, with not even a friend to 
hold her hand while death’s cold waters closed around her. 
She was buried in a magnificent casket, and a beautiful 
marble was erected over her grave. It bore the simple 
inscription: “Lonely Lily.” 

“If she loved rashly, her life paid for wrong — 

A heavy price must all pay who thus err. 

In some shape; let none think to fly the danger. 

For soon or late Love is his own avenger.” 

“And now, my friends,” the reader said, after she had 
finished reading, “you have heard my story, which is a true 
one, and I want to say, for my conscience sake, that it makes 
my heart ache, even now, to recall it all, and lo remember 
that I had an opportunity ‘to do good’ and I let it pass^” 

“Most of us are guilty of the same sin,” said a vivacious 
little woman sitting near. 

“Just last week I let an ‘opportunity’ pass. A sweet, 
young girl came to me, and amid blushes and many hesi- 
tations told me she wanted my advice ; that she had received 
a letter from the ‘nicest young man,’ and did I think she 
ought to correspond with him.” 

“I told her I was not able to advise her, as I did not 
know the young man, and consequently knew nothing of 
his character, but that I considered it injudicious for 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


201 


young girls to correspond with men; that many of them 
were not honorable and took delight in showing the letters 
of their female correspondents to other men — sometimes 
criticising them and their writers very severely.” 

“But I do so want to correspond with him, and I do 
not believe he would ever show a single one of my letters.” 

“Perhaps not,” I said, “but nine out of ten will.” 

“Well, my friend is the tenth one, then,” she said, sweetly. 
“And really, don’t you think I may just as well answer 
this letter?” 

“Yes, I suppose so,’ ” I said, for I knew if I advised her 
not to do so, she would immediately proceed not to take 
my advice, and besides, she would have hated me forever 
after — yet I should have done my duty.” 

“Yes, you should have done your duty; yet, I dare say 
you would have been casting pearls before swine — so to 
speak — for the girl, if she is like the majority of girls I 
know, would not have heeded your words; she would have 
done as she pleased and trusted to the young man’s honor, 
preferring to live in a fool’s paradise than to eschew a 
doubtful pleasure. Some writer has said that ‘women like 
to be deceived,’ and sometimes I am tempted to believe 
it true. I know a girl who will correspond with half a 
dozen young men at the same time; and another who will 
give her photographs to all the young men of her acquaint- 
ance, and yet the girls know positively that those young 
men show the letters of other girls, and make fun of all who 
were ‘goose enough to give a boy her picture’; the girl 
who gave her photos around promiscuously told me herself 
that certain young men of her acquaintance had what they 
called a ‘goose table,’ on which they kept the picture of 
every girl ‘who was goose enough to give them one.’ So, 
my friend, you needn’t grieve over your ‘lost opportunity,’ ” 


CHAPTER XXV. 


STORY TWO. 

“Speak gently to the erring; 

Ye may not know the power 
With which the dark temptation came 
In some unguarded hour. 

Ye may not know how earnestly 
They struggled, nor how well, 

Until the hour of weakness came. 

And sadly thus they fell.” 

“M — . was a sleepy little inland town, surrounded by a 
belt of pine trees, which had been instrumental in gaining 
for the place the name of being the ‘healthiest spot on earth.’ 
At least that is what its inhabitants claimed for it.” 

“Now and again some stranger drifted into its midst and 
tarried long enough to fill his lungs with the pungent 
odor of the resinous laden air, and to hear for himself the 
‘music among the pines.’ ” 

“But who would dream of such a quiet, lazy place being 
converted into a stage, on which was to be enacted ‘Life’s 
saddest central tragedy?’ ” 

“As we enter, the curtain rises on the second act, but 

“ ‘Though the first scene be wanting, it yet is not hard 

To divine, more or less, what the plot may ha;Ve been.’ ” 

“The stage scenery is a befitting background for so 
tragical a play. Myriads of tall, spectral pines stand like 


202 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


203 


countless gloomy sentinels, with weird, uncanny arms 
thrown out and upward toward a lowering sky, where 
lurid clouds seem to threaten a dreadful battle between the 
elements. 

“The fast approaching night sweeps over all, her ‘trailing 
garments,’ and darkens the sad earth with her ‘sable skirts.’ 
The wind moans sobbingly and stirs the long, green 
‘needles’ into shuddering, rippling music, whose rising and 
falling cadence carries the mind back to the beautiful 
legend of the Pascagoulas, and thrills the soul with that 
mysterious ecstasy which is half pleasure and half pain. 
A sudden tremulous sound floats through the moaning 
air — the dismal cry of the ‘screech-owl’ — a cry which never 
fails to strike terror to the superstitious mind. A tall, 
grandly built, handsome man pauses for an instant in his 
long strides to and fro, to and fro, and gazes upward into 
the gnarled branches, muttering something about ‘The ig- 
norant only, who are affrighted by the voice of an ill- 
omened bird’ — then resumes his restless, impatient, seem- 
ingly never-ending march.’’ 

“Now and again he peers into the fast-gathering dark- 
ness with a strained, eager expectancy, ever and anon 
consulting an open watch which he holds in his palm, as 
he continues his nervous, agitated walk.’’ 

“ ‘A quarter past the hour,’ he mutters, ‘and she has not 
come. I wonder if her courage has failed her. I would 
not have believed it of so brave and daring a woman. Is 
it fear of the storm which Nature threatens — or is it fear of 
the human ‘tiny trumpeting gnats’ and ‘vermin voices’ that 
would buzz so loud and sting to death the poor, unhappy 
creature, if once our secret love and trysting place were 
discovered?’ ” 

“ ‘I would — ah!’ he exclaimed, as a white streak gleamed 
pallidly through the thickening shadows, and a low voice, 


204 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


vibrant with suppressed passion and conflicting emotions, 
called softly: ‘Winburn, my darling!’ ” 

“He advanced to meet her with out-stretched arms, and 
she fell, sobbing, upon his breast.” 

“He folded her slight form in a close embrace, and she 
hid her hot, burning face against him.” 

“ ‘My darling,’ he said, ‘I thought you were not com- 
ing; that you were afraid of the threatening sky.’ ” 

“ ‘Ah, Winburn! I would brave all the terrors of earth 
and hell for love of you,’ she replied, with the sound of 
tears in her low, sweet voice.” 

“ ‘My darling, do you love me so well?’ he asked, pass- 
ing his strong hand with a caressive touch over the fluffy 
mass of her tawny curls. ‘Do you love me so well?’ ” he re- 
peated. 

“But her only answer was to bury her face against him 
once more and cling to him with tightened, trembling 
arms, until the close pressure of her soft, exquisite form 
fired his warm blood and made him forget everything save 
his passionate love for this beautiful, unhappy woman. He 
crushed her to him, bending her slowly backward, hypno- 
tizing her with the magnetism of his touch until her will 
yielded to his more dominant will, and her strained, rigid 
clasp fell listlessly away from him, her head drooped over 
his arm and left her passion-pale face upturned to his eager 
kisses. When she felt his first warm kiss, pressed upon her 
curved lips, a pang like the keen cut of a sword shot through 
her and she knew that her soul was hers no longer. He 
felt her utter surrender, by that mysterious, wonderful 
communication which exists between some mortals. In 
that instant, a blinding streak zig-zagged athwart the angry 
sky, and the dense wood was lit up for one moment with 
supernal splendor.” 

“In an instant he had caught the woman up in his strong 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


205 


arms, and, striding through the darkness, found shelter and 
refuge in a large cabin, possibly the late deserted home of 
some humble diewer of wood.’ ” 

“ Tut me down,’ she whispered, faint with the intensity 
of emotion, and the strength of the love and passion of her 
warm, tropical nature.” 

“ ‘I will not put you down until you tell me that you love 
me — that you love me better than anything on earth,’ he 
said, clasping her more closely to him.” 

“ ‘Oh, don’t, Winbum, don’t,’ she said sweetly, trying to 
draw herself away from him — but finding no strength of will 
to repulse this impassioned lover.” 

(And soft pleadings, gentle remonstrances, are not the 
kind of weapons a woman needs, with which to defend 
herself from the evil consequences of a false step, a false 
position, a grievous error.) 

“Well, then, say — ‘Winburn, I love you better than any- 
thing on earth!’ he insisted. 

“‘Oh, Winburn! you know that I love you better than 
anything on earth or in heaven,’ ” she said, slowly. 

“ ‘Better than God?’ he queried, with bold sacrilege. 

“ ‘Better than God,’ ” she answered softly, but he caught 
her faint murmur and pressed her to him with such violent 
passion that she would have cried out in pain, only his 
kisses smothered back her voice — and ‘they two’ forgot the 
outside world, the shrieking wind — everything but their 
mad love for each other. 

“He forgot his honor, his manhood, his pity — and she 
forgot all her life-long principles, all the shuddering horror 
she had ever felt at the thought of unholy love fulfilled.” 

“But when they came back to the reality of life and he 
had kissed her good-night at her own door, while the stars 
looked down and blinked as unmoved as though there were 
no hearts to break with their weight of woe, she begun to 


206 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


remember — even amid her bitter-sweet joy, that all of life 
is not loving. But while the intoxication of love was still 
upon her she could think less of the ‘bitter’ than the sweet.’ ” 

“Hurrying to her room, where she could be alone with 
her new, strange thoughts, she threw herself upon her bed 
and begun to live over the last few hours of her life. She 
thrilled anew when she remembered her lover’s passionate 
caresses and loving words. She seemed to feel his kisses 
yet upon her lips and face and and neck and arms. She 
unbuttoned the cuffs of her sleeves and rolled them up, 
baring the beautiful soft arms to the dimpled shoulders ; she 
stroked the warm, downy flesh and smiled a sweet, faint, 
tender smile, as she bent her queenly head and kissed, first 
one arm and then the other, where her lover’s lips had left 
the late warm kisses. But oh, how quickly the smile died 
out of the loving eyes as she felt that dreadful pain — the 
quick, sharp, deadly blow which an outraged conscience 
dealt — a blow whose cruel stroke robbed love of all its 
sweetness, and turned the rich, luscious fruit to ashes on 
her lips. And then, she knew that henceforth and forever 
more, life, for her, would be one long, sickening, deathless 
conflict between heart and conscience — right and wrong.’’ 

“Already she realized that in drinking the sweet, rich 
wine of love, she was imbibing a draught that was deeply, 
terribly tinctured with gall and wormwood.” 

“Already the deathless conflict had begun to tear her soul. 
Over and over and over she said to herself that she would 
willingly forfeit many years of her life, if only she might 
retrace her steps; if only she might recross the ‘invisible 
boundary between moral light and darkness’ — and yet, 
even while she was thus communing with herself, another 
voice kept whispering to her, with seductive sweetness: 
‘It is glorious to love and to be loved; to be loved as he 
loves you.’ ” 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


207 


“ ‘But does he love me — really love me?’ she asked her- 
self again and again, as there came into her mind the 
memory of an old belief that ‘True love never seeks to harm 
or dishonor its object.’ And with that memory came troops 
of doubts and fears, and she knew that she would never 
again be happy and at peace. But after all, she could not 
fully realize the black horror of her sin; she could not help 
feeling that the intensity of her love vindicated her, to 
some extent.” 

‘‘True, there were moments when she shrank, from her- 
self with loathing; but she would not entertain such mo- 
ments; she drove them from her by recalling her lover’s 
passionate words and tender kisses. (Women forget that 
men can easily play the role of a devoted lover.) Thus the 
long hours of the night were spent in alternately thrilling 
under the memory of love’s sweetness, and agonizing under 
the lashings of outraged conscience.” 

‘‘Toward morning she fell into a troubled sleep, and 
dreamed that her lover had proved false to her; that he had 
broken all the sacred vows he had made in promising to 
marry her should “heaven give permission.” And when she 
had reproached him with his perfidy, he had turned upon her 
and asked her, with bitter scorn in his tones, if she ‘really 
had no better sense than to believe a man would marry 
the woman who would yield herself to unlawful love.’ ” 

“The horror of the dream awakened her. But even after 
she had fully realized that it was only a dream, she could 
not shake off the presentiment of some terrible evil await- 
ing her.” 

“ ‘Alas! there is no instinct like the heart — 

The heart, which may be broken: happy they! thrice 
fortunate ! 


208 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


Who of that fragile mold, the precious porcelain of human 
clay, 

Break with the first fall; they can ne’er behold the long 
year linked with heavy day on day 
And all which must be borne and never told.’ ” 


CHAPTER XXVL 


“Plow exquisite one single drop 
Of bliss thus sparkling to the top 
Of misery’s cup — how keenly quaffed, 

Though death must follow on the draught.” 

“Alas, the love of women! it is known to be a lovely and a 
fearful thing; 

For all of theirs upon that die is thrown, and if ’tis lost, life 
hath no more to bring 
To them but mockeries of the past alone.” 

“When she met her lover again, she tried to tell him how 
she was tormented by the passions that were consuming 
her. She begged him to be honest with her, and tell her 
if he had premeditated luring her into sin, when he asked 
her to grant him a secret meeting; and if he had considered 
her acquiescence to meet him as a consent to the awful sin 
which had fallen upon her and darkened her life forever.” 

“‘No, my darling,’ he said, uttering the falsehood with that 
glibness which is man’s peculiar gift, ‘I never premeditated 
any wrong to you — I love you too truly for that. But there 
is no wrong; between you and me it is no sin; the very 
intensity of our love purifies it and renders it holy, as 
holy — yes, a thousand times more holy than hundreds of 
the world’s so-called marriages.. But even if it is a sin, 
dearest, L am willing to suffer any penalty which Fate may 
decree for me.’ ” 

“ ‘There is no penalty for you, Winburn,’ she said, raising 
her piteous eyes to his face; ‘It is only I who must suffer.’ ” 

209 


14 


210 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


“ ‘No penalty in this world, perhaps,’ he said, gravely, 
‘but Mona, darling, in the next world God, and not man, 
will judge us. If our love be a sin, my punishment will 
be greater than yours, because it is I who should have had 
the strength to conquer myself, to conquer the over- 
mastering passion that seized and controlled me. The 
Arthur Dimmesdales, in the. judgment day, will stand side 
by side with the Hester Prynnes, and the punishment will 
fall more heavily upon the former, because of their having 
suffered none of it here. The Hester Prynnes will al- 
ready have paid the penalty of their sin — they will already 
have expiated their crime, and satisfied the broken law. 
And now, my darling, promise me that you will not grieve 
and worry any more. Even if you have sinned, try to re- 
member that an earthly judge never condemns a criminal 
to be punished twice for one offense; and the Divine Judge 
who errs not, is a God of love and a God of mercy. Be 
assured, my darling, if either of us is condemned to eternal 
punishment, it will not be you.’ ” 

“ ‘Oh, Winburn,’ she said, and her pretty, fair hand 
crept up to his handsome face and stroked it gently; T 
don’t want to think that you will be punished with a punish- 
ment greater than mine ; that thought does not comfort me ; 
I wish God would let me suffer for us both. We have 
sinned, but some day, if heaven should remove the barrier 
now between us, you will marry me, and right the wrong, 
will not you, Winburn?’ she asked, feebly falling back 
upon that poor, pitiful question that every tempted, weak 
woman has asked, since the days of our Mother Eve — 
and requiring a pledge which means no more, from the 
lips of man, than the serpent’s meant when he promised 
happiness to the woman he tempted.” 

“ ‘My darling, if that time ever comes,’ he said, with 
that easy promptness a man in his position may safely 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


2II 


adopt, ‘I will make you my true and honored wife, and 
thus prove to you how great is my love for the one woman 
who is all the world to me.’ ” 

“ ‘O God! if only I could make my heart forget its doubts 
and fears! If only I could teach myself to trust you fully — 
but I am tossed about like a helpless vessel on a stormy 
sea,’ she said, sadly.” 

“ ‘Mona, my darling, my love, surely you will believe me 
when I tell you that I never meant to wrong you. In 
natures such as ours, love is like a maddened torrent that 
sweeps down everything before it ; and I was borne along by 
a force stronger than myself. The sin is all mine, because, 
womanlike, you would have lived out your sad life, con- 
tent to ‘suffer and be strong,’ if I had not tempted you as 
never woman was tempted before. Do you think, dear- 
est, I can ever forget what a long, brave struggle you made, 
or how great is the sacrifice, for love’s sweet sake?’ ” 

“ ‘But you will cease to love me now, Winburn — for you 
know it is true, too sadly true, that a man’s love turns to 
loathing and contempt, as soon as it has been crowned by 
passion gratified,’ she said, remembering she had once 
read that Nature had made man and woman to differ 
greatly in their impulses of love, and that the bond which 
drew the woman closer to the man, caused the man to draw 
away from the woman.” 

“ ‘I will never cease to love you, darling,’ he said, draw- 
ing her to him and caressing the beautiful golden head, 
‘so dry your tears and try to be happy in the knowledge 
that I love you better than anything on earth.’ 

“ ‘But, Winburn, I am so afraid you will lose all respect 
for me, and learn to despise me. Oh, my God! how can 
I bear it? To think that I have lost the brightest, purest 
gem in woman’s crown — and for what? — for the scorn and 
contempt of one for whose love I would willingly die — ay, 


212 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


more — I would live, and living suffer — suffer a thousand 
deaths/ ” 

“ ‘My darling,’ he said, soothingly, ‘please do not talk to 
me like that; it hurts me to have you think that I could 
ever feel scorn or contempt for you; I have more respect 
for you than for any woman I ever knew in all my life. 
Did not you resist temptation until nothing less holy than 
an angel could have resisted longer? And even angels fall, 
my darling.’ ” 

“ ‘Oh, Winburn!’ she said, pathetically, ‘while I am with 
you, while I am under the sound of your voice, I am com- 
forted; but when you are not with me, when there is noth- 
ing to shield me from the lashings of conscience, my terror 
and agony are greater than I can bear.’ ” 

“ ‘But you must be brave, dearest, and comfort yourself 
with the thought that it will all come right in the end. Re- 
member the promise I have made you; see — I seal that 
promise with a kiss ; now, darling, we are betrothed — prom- 
ised to each other.’ ” 

“ ‘Yes, Winburn,’ she said softly, ‘we are betrothed — how 
sweet it sounds!’ (What a fool! Yes, but most women are 
fools where love is concerned.)” 

“ ‘And, now, Mona, you must be strong, and bear brave- 
ly what I am going to tell you; I must leave you, dearest — 
I must go back to my work; I received a summons this 
morning, and in three hours I leave for New York; but I 
will come back to see you, and we will have the comfort 
of letters.’ ” 

“‘Oh, Winburn!’ she cried, her voice sharp with pain. 
I cannot let you leave me — I cannot live without you now.’ ” 

“ ‘But I must leave you, Mona,’ he said, earnestly.” 

“‘You must not leave me!’ she cried, passionately, for- 
getting her womanly modesty in the fierce pain that laid 
its clutch on her heart, as she saw a dim picture of herself. 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


213 


forsaken by the man who had brought this bitter grief upon 
her, and left alone in her desperate, hopeless misery, and 
never-ending remorse and regret. ‘You cannot leave me — 
I will not give you up! We have sinned the “unpardonable 
sin” — unpardonable for me — why need we wait for 
heaven’s permission? Take me with you, Winburn! 
O-h-h! take me with you. Do not leave me here — oh, 
Winburn! Winburn! do not leave me!’ she cried wildly, 
throwing herself at his feet, and clasping her arms around 
his knees, forgetting everything in the agony of her soul.” 

“ ‘Mona, my darling,’ he said gently, stooping over her 
and lifting her up against his breast, ‘don’t give way to 
such grief; it hurts me to see you suffer so (all men in 
their selfishness hate to witness the pain they bring into a 
woman’s life.) And you do not know what you are saying, 
sweet; you know I cannot take you with me; I would to 
God that I could — but only think, dearest, of the evil con- 
sequences to others, should we dare take such a step ! Our 
lives are not our own. Selfishness is one of the most 
ignoble crimes. We are sinning a secret sin, perhaps, but 
no one suffers from that save our two selves; and, Mona, 
do you not feel in your soul that the lesser evil is to endure 
the canker in our own hearts, rather than darken the lives 
of those who love and honor us? Think of the shame and 
sorrow such an act would bring to them!” 

“‘I cannot see the shame!’ she cried, wildly. ‘I cannot 
consider the “lesser evil,” or the sorrow of others. I can 
think only of my own pain, and my mad love for you. Oh, 
Winburn! if it is no disgrace for the Vanderbilts and Astors 
and Yznagas to seek happiness through the divorce courts, 
why should it be for us?’ ” 

“ ‘My darling,’ he said, softly, ‘such people can afford to 
do as they please, but people in our humble station in life 
would never be able to live down the disgrace/ '' 


214 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


“ T don’t care for the disgrace,’ she cried, with frenzied 
recklessness. T don’t care for the world — I care only for 
you — but you have deceived me. You made me believe 
you loved me better than all the world, Lut you don’t love 
me at all; it is the world you love — it is your pride you 
love, and the “shame and disgrace to our loved ones” is 
only an excuse.’ ” 

“As she spoke her face grew pale as death and her eyes 
shone like burning coals.” 

“He did not answer her, for he knew that what she said 
was true; he could not face the finger of scorn which the 
world might point at him; but he felt sorry for her — sorry 
for her misery, for her baffled love and her wounded pride.” 

“Aifter awhile the sorrow in his face touched her heart 
and she put her arms around his neck and said : ‘No, Win- 
burn, you did not deceive me — you did not wrong me; it 
was not your fault, it was mine; you only offered me the 
pure, sweet lily-bell of friendship, at first — but I clamored 
for the crimson rose of love — and now, because its thorns 
have wounded me, I cry out like a child, against you, for 
giving it me. I led you on — I made you love me, or I tried 
to make you love me — but you will forgive me for saying 
cruel things to you. I cannot help being cruel when I am 
in such pain myself. But you will marry me, if — if — if — ’ 
she could not bring herself to say more, and he answered: 
‘Yes, dear, I will.’ ” 

“ ‘Now kiss me good-by,’ he said, stooping to press her 
quivering face to him, ‘and remember that I will come back 
to you.’ ” 

“‘No! no! no!’ she cried, ‘you will never come back to 
me; the years will come and go, but you will never come 
back; something here,’ clutching wildly at her throbbing 
heart, ‘tells me you will never come back. After tonight 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


215 


I shall have to spend the remainder of my life with those 
sad words of Byron’s echoing always in my heart : 

“ ‘We two parted in silence and tears, 

Half broken-hearted, to sever for years,’ 

Only it will be forever.’ ” 

“ ‘Mona, dearest, you are excited; you are not yourself; 
your words are wild, my darling.’ ” 

“ ‘Oh, Winburn! I am mad — mad with the thoughts that 
crowd upon me; of how we met; how we have loved; how 
we have sinned; how we must part, and — oh-h-h! it is too 
cruel — too unjust! Why did Fate send you to cross my 
path? or why couldn’t you have gone away and left me 
before we sinned, just as well as you can go away now 
and leave me? But, Winburn, I think I could bear it all, 
if I could feel assured the time will never come when your 
heart will desert me, and your love be given to another.’ ” 

“ ‘I will never love any one else as I love you, my dar- 
ling. But I must leave you now — I have only ten minutes,’ 
he said, looking at his watch, ‘to catch my train.’ ” 

“For one short, shuddering moment, they clasped and 
kissed — ‘A madness of farewells.’ ” 

“Then the man strode away, quickly throwing from his 
heart the last remnant of self-reproach — utterly indifferent 
to, and unrepentant of, his deadly sin.” 

“He was a man (made in the image of God) — he had a 
right to kill women’s souls for the gratification of his lust- 
ful pleasures. Did not society grant him the privilege? 
Should a man be expected to deny himself pleasure, that 
he might save a woman from endless remorse and deathless 
agony? And is it man’s fault if — 

“ Ce monde est plein de foiisf ” 


CHAPTER XXVII. 


“And our hearts like drums are beating 
Funeral marches to the grave.” 

“Six months later a man sat in his room cleaning an 
‘unloaded pistol’; the weapon ‘went off’ and the man lay 
weltering in a pool of blood, with a bullet in his brain.” 

“Fate had removed the barrier; Heaven had given per- 
mission’ for Winburn Leighton to keep his promise to 
Mona Foster. Would he keep it?” 

“Do men generally keep such promises?” 

“Search the world’s record of crimes, of suicides; trace 
the histories of ruined and fallen women; the answer will 
be found. Letters passed between the lovers — but noth- 
ing was said of ‘marriage.’ And the woman, wearing her 
widow’s weeds in conformity to society’s code' — an out- 
ward semblance of a grief she could not feel — sighed to 
think of the weary months that must pass — a tribute to 
the tyrant Propriety — ere she could find rest and peace in 
the fulfillment of her lover’s sacred vows. She dared not 
allow herself a doubt of his fidelity. But one day she 
picked up a paper and begun to glance carelessly through 
its columns.” 

“ ‘My God!’ she cried, suddenly, and dropped the paper 
as though an adder had stung her.” 

“Then she picked it up again and read: — 

“ ‘Marriage in high life — ’ 

“The letters danced before her eyes and made an uncer- 
tain blur, but she distinguished the words ‘Winburn Leigh- 
ton to the beautiful Miss Millionaire — famous alike for her 
beauty and her wealth.’ 


216 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


217 


“Again the paper dropped from her nerveless fingers — 
she fell back in her chair, her white face looking like a 
wilted lily against the dark green of the velvet ‘head-rest,’ 
and for the first time in her life she realized the full horror 
and shame of her position. Never before had she quite 
looked upon herself as a fallen woman, for she had always 
felt that she and Winburn Leighton were husband and wife, 
in spirit, if not in letter.” 

“As she lay back with her wild, burning eyes staring 
blankly before her, and her whole body quivering with 
despair and shame, her breast became a terrible battle- 
ground and in it was fought the fiercest battle her soul 
could ever know.” 

“One week later, a woman walked into a man’s office, 
and, closing the door securely, crept up to the solitary 
occupant, who sat stunned by the sudden and unexpected 
apparition, and catching his hand in hers, she bent all the 
fingers shut save the index finger, which she lifted to her 
lily-white forehead, and trailing it along in the shape of 
a letter, she whispered hoarsely: 

“ ‘Winburn, you put it there. Last night I slept for the 
first time in my life in one of those gilded palaces of sin, 
and you drove me there.’ ” 

“Before he could rally sufficiently to answer her she had 
turned and glided out.” 

“After that — day after day — she drove past his open window 
in an elegant carriage; her lovely form arrayed in rich- 
est silks that glistened and shimmered in the sunlight; cost- 
ly laces rose and fell on her throbbing breast; priceless 
diamonds sparkled on her hands, in her ears, on her bosom. 
And as she drove past, her silvery peals of subdued, mock- 
ing laughter fell on his ears, and made him shiver as 
though smitten by a sudden chill.” 


CHAPTER XXVIII. 


“But the bird with the broken pinion 
Kept another from the snare, 

And the life that sin had stricken 
Raised another from despair.” 

“In a large, luxurious room, furnished with Oriental 
splendor, two fair women sit facing each other, looking 
into each other’s eyes; one with eager, pleading, anxious 
interest, the other with grave, sad, impassioned gaze; fear, 
remorse, regret and repentance depicted in every line of 
her beautiful face, in the drooping, downward curve of 
her delicious lips, in the piteous quivering of her softly 
rounded, perfect chin, in the starry, luminous, dilated eyes.” 

“ ‘Promise me you will leave this accursed place,’ pleaded 
a sweet, gentle voice. ‘Why do you hesitate? Surely you 
are too great of soul to linger here for love of such polluted 
luxuries,’ casting her eyes around and noting with anxious 
pain the richness and elegance of the magnificent surround- 
ings. The furnishings of amber and palest blue seemed a 
fit setting for the golden-haired inmate. On the floor was 
a carpet in whose velvety thickness the woman’s dainty little 
satin-slippered feet were almost hidden. Around the walls, 
scattered here and there in careless grace, were beautiful 
marble stands, holding tall, slender vases of all designs, 
elegantly chased in gold and silver, filled with exquisite 
orchids and other costly flowers. Interspersed between 
were divans covered with gorgeously embroidered amber 
velvet and silk and satin. On all the walls hung handsome 

218 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


219 


mirrors, which reflected the beauty of the two fair women 
from every side.” 

“The woman addressed followed with her eyes the glance 
of her companion, as she gazed around at the seductive 
luxury of the room; then a convulsive shudder ran through 
her, and she cried, bitterly: 

“ ‘Do you think I would have sold my birthright for a 
“mess of pottage” such as this?’ hissing the words through 
her clenched, pearly teeth. ‘I was driven here by my 
shame and horror and despair.’ ” 

“ ‘Ah, Mona, tell me about it, dear. Surely you cannot 
hesitate to trust the old friend of your girlhood days. Oh, 
to think that I should find you here, after our long sep- 
aration!’ ” 

“ ‘O, dear friend, I cannot tell you; you will despise me 
so; and I do not wish to think of the past — to recall its 
terrible agony. Leave me to drown my conscience and 
my sorrow in revelry and debauch.’ ” 

“ ‘Despise you,’ cried the other. ‘Why, Mona, what am I, 
that I should despise you? How can you speak like that, 
after I have told you the story of my own sin-stained life?’ ’’ 

“ ‘But, dearest, you must remember that you did not 
fall so low as — that you were never an inmate of a house 
like this; that you were never a wanton — a professional 
wanton — even for an hour. O God ! God I — the thought of 
it all is killing me. It is not pain I feel, it is agony, it is 
the torture of hell — a living, never-ending hell. Ah, God! 
what will it be after death?’ And her voice sunk away into 
a quavering moan of heart-rending pathos.” 

“ ‘Mona, dear Mona,” cried her friend, ‘tell me all your 
sorrow, and let me help you bear it. It will do us both 
good; in telling your grief to me you will lose half the bur- 
den, and I will feel happier to think that my suffering has 


220 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


not been in vain — that I am enabled to sympathize with 
you. You know that I am your true friend.’ ” 

“ ‘Yes, yes, dear! else you would never have had the 
courage to come to me in a house like this. How good 
you are!’ ” 

“ ‘My poor Mona, you must not call me good — I am 
not good,’ her friend replied, ‘but when shame and sorrow, 
like a dense, black pall, fell over my life and my spirit lay 
crushed and my heart broken, I felt that I must die or go 
mad — if God refused to comfort and help me. I cried out 
to Him for mercy, and asked Him to tell me what to do. 
Prompt and resolute, the answer came, “Remember the 
story of the bird with the broken pinion; go thou and keep 
another from the snare;” and I obeyed the Divine voice. 
My work was very hard, at first, for Satan was loth to 
yield his hold on one of his expected victims, and tried to 
keep me from my work, by whispering into my ear that I 
was a hypocrite — a “whited sepulchre”; that it was like the 
blind trying to lead the blind, for a vile, sin-stained creature 
like myself to be trying to save others from evil. Many 
times the sneering, taunting voice would whisper: “Can 
any good thing come out of Nazareth?” Ah! Satan him- 
self, in his ultra-eagerness to clutch my soul, had furnished 
me with an answer. Yes, some good thing could come out 
of Nazareth, even Nazareth! And so I persevered, stumbling 
along at first, like one suddenly emerging from a darkened 
room into a brilliant, blazing glory of sunlight. But un- 
seen hands upheld me; and gradually peace came back to 
me, and I found that even I could taste once more the 
joy of living — of living for others. Ah, Mona! there is no 
nepenthe like it; — 

“ ‘Not that nepenthe which the wife of Thone 

In Egypt gave to Jove-born Helena, 

Is of such power.’ 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


221 


“ ‘Come, Mona, leave this wicked place, and all the sad, 
grievous past, with its cruel wrongs, behind, and go forth 
with me — another bird with a broken wing; and help me to 
keep others from the terrible snare that entrapped you 
and me.’ ” 

“‘Oh, friend!’ cried the stricken woman, ‘I cannot go 
with you — I can never again mingle with the world. If I 
were trying to atone for the past and to live a good, pure 
life, the world’s taunts and sneers would be as a probing 
knife piercing my quivering heart at every turn; life 
would be a daily crucifixion. Oh! I could not bear it — I 
could not bear it — I am not strong enough for that. But 
leave me alone a little while to think; at this hour tomor- 
row come to me; if I feel convinced, in that time, that I 
can be true to my vows, I will renounce everything and 
flee for refuge within convent walls; there I can hide my- 
self and my terrible shame.’ ” 

“ ‘But, Mona, dear, that is not the noblest atonement. 
There you can do nothing to save others from falling. 
Think of the good you might do if you would consecrate 
your life to this glorious mission! Oh! if you could but 
hear that voiceless, agonizing cry that is echoing from 
world to world. It comes from thousands of unhappy 
women — women who love ‘not wisely, but too well’ — wo- 
men who have not yet quaffed the beautiful, sparkling, 
poisoned drink, but who stand poised upon the brink of 
eternal ruin, with the brimming goblet in their up-raised 
hands. Oh, Mona! let us try to save them. Who are so well 
qualified as you and I to warn poor, frail womankind 
against yielding to the sweet seductiveness of unwise love? 
You and I, who have drained love’s draught to its bitter 
dregs; you and I, who have tasted all of love’s sweetness, 
only to find that every sweet drop we have drained was but 
a drop of deadly poison, a drop of liquid fire; and that for 


222 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


every moment of pleasure and happiness thus gained, we 
have paid the terrible price of hours and hours of torturing 
agony. Oh! Mona, Mona, there must be some way of 
reaching women — their reason and better judgment; there 
must be some way of saving them from that fatal step which 
plunges them into everlasting despair and ruin, when they 
hear the warning from the lips of those who have suffered 
and who know.’ ” 


CHAPTER XXIX. 


‘Tf aught on earth could charm or force 
My spirit from its destined course ; 

If aught could make this soul forget 
The bond to which its seal is set, 

‘Twould be those eyes — they, only they. 

Could melt that sacred seal away! 

But no — ’tis fixed — my awful doom 
Is fixed — on this side of the tomb 
We meet no more ; why, why did heaven 
Mingle two souls that earth has riven. 

Has rent asunder wide as ours?” 

“For long, long hours a man has been sitting before his 
desk, as motionless as though he were carved in marble. 
One elbow rests upon the desk, the hand supporting his 
weary head. His face looks pale and drawn and haggard, 
and shows unmistakable traces of a terrible mental struggle. 
As the increasing sounds of busy life pierce the stillness of 
his room, he draws a long, shuddering sigh and relaxes 
the fingers of his other hand, which for hours has held, in 
a vice-like grip, a crushed and rumpled letter. He lays 
the letter on his desk with as much tenderness as one might 
touch the dead, and begins to smooth out, with gentle 
touches, the countless creases in the dainty, satiny paper, 
which emits a delicate perfume like that wafted through an 
open window, from ‘wind-swept violet beds.’ ” 

“In the hand on which his head has rested during so 
many weary hours, he holds a beautifully chased silver 

223 


224 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


paper-knife, which he has unconsciously held thus ever 
since using it in opening his letter. He has not been con- 
scious of the lapse of time — or that the knife has made a 
cruel impress on his face.’’ 

“It does not strike him as a desecration that he has used 
the wedding gift of his lovely bride in cutting the envelope 
sealed by a wanton’s hand.” 

“His mind has gone back to that bitter-sweet hour among 
the pines; and he shudders as he recalls the words: ‘The 
Arthur Dimmesdales will stand side by side with the Hester 
Prynnes.’ And then, as if compelled by some strange fas- 
cination, he turns to the letter and reads again the sad, 
accusing, pathetic words:” 

“ ‘Winburn: — When you read this letter I shall be dead — 
utterly dead, to the world and you. But I cannot bear to 
die and leave you believing me more wicked than I am. 
Oh, Winburn! when the notice of your marriage fell upon 
me like a sudden, cruel blow, it drove me mad — and in my 
desperate, reckless grief, I sought to have revenge by tor- 
turing your heart with the daily, pitiful sight of my terrible 
degradation — and so I came here — oh-h, God! oh, God! 
if a woman could only foresee the nameless torture that 
must inevitably be her punishment, she would never, iiever^ 
never commit the “sin of sins” for love of any man.’ ” 

“ ‘Since your perfidy, your falseness drove me here, Win- 
burn, I have lived such a life — such a sickening, loathesome 
life; I have had lovers (?) who lavished their wealth upon 
me until I am surfeited to disgust. I could drink pearls 
dissolved in my wines, every day, if my caprice should move 
me to such folly. Men fight like wild beasts, before my 
very eyes, for the preference of my favors; they kneel at 
my feet and kiss the borders of my skirts. In our carous- 
als, they snatch my little satin slippers from my feet, and, 
filling them with sparkling champagne and richest wines. 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


225 


drink to the health of “La Belle Cleopatra'’ — the pet name 
they have given me.” 

“ ‘They furnish me with costly perfumes, that rival the 
odors of Araby, in which to bathe my “lovely form”; they 
snow me under with masses and masses of American 
Beauty roses — ah, Winburn! do you remember our love 
for our favorite flowers — our beautiful roses? But I must 
not — oh, God! — I must not recall the past!’ ” 

“‘Oh, Winburn! why are men so cruel and unjust to 
women, the weaker ones? They seem to regard us as their 
legitimate prey — their toys — meant only for the amusement 
of their leisure hours; they wear us on their breasts for 
one brief day, as they would a boutonniere, and then they 
cast us away for a fresher flower — and alas! alas! women 
allow themselves to be worn thus for one brief day of joy — 
joy not unmixed with bitter pain, and for which they pay 
the price of a soul. Men do not seem to realize that pas- 
sion is Nature’s gift to her daughters as well as to her 
sons, and that women deserve help and sympathy in their 
unequal struggle to maintain virtue and purity. Instead, 
they get only sneers and scorn and contempt when their 
love grows stronger than principles — stronger than every 
other earthly feeling.” 

“ ‘Ah, merciful God! “The saddest of all is loving.” And 
how I loved you, Winburn! But I sinned, and my heart 
is broken, my life is ruined. I know that thousands of 
women have met with the same fate, through the baseness 
of the men they have loved, and I cannot, cannot under- 
stand it. Some one has said that it is the “old cruel dif- 
ference and inequality of man and woman as nature made 
them — the old trick, the old tragedy.” Oh, Winburn! I 
cannot believe that. Is God a fallible being, that He should 
make such a cruel mistake as to create woman and endow 


15 


226 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


her with a gift which is a disgrace and a dishonor to her? 
And if it be a dishonor — why condemn the woman for 
that which is the “gift of God”? But why do I write these 
words to you? I did not mean to do so. I only wanted 
to tell you that I am not as bad as the world thinks me — 
as you think me — and that I can bear this evil life no 
longer. Tomorrow I die — to the world; you cannot visit 
my grave, to drop a tear on the polluted dust of her who 
never knew aught of sin until she learned it of you — her 
idol. My grave? It will be within the walls of the House 
of the Good Shepherd. There, they gather in the 
lost sheep, and shelter them from further harm of human 
wolves. But I must bid you farewell. I forgive you the 
cruel wrong you have done me; I will spend the rest of 
my life praying God to forgive me — and I will pray for 
you, too, Winburn. May the time never come when wife 
or daughter of yours shall meet with such a fate as befell 
me. But one can never be sure. Once I was “pure as the 
snow”; the worlJ, with all its temptations, was powerless 
to tarnish my spotless purity, until I fell “like a snowflake” 
beneath your feet.” 

“ ‘Women will never be safe, Winburn, until every man 
adopts, as a self-imposed law, the determination to value 
and protect the purity of every other man’s wife, daughter 
and sister, as he values and protects the purity of his own 
loved ones; for so long as men continue to tempt women 
into sin, so long will the world be filled with the saddest of 
all sad tragedies — the ruin of women.” 

“ Tf God ever gives you a son, train him to guard sa- 
credly every woman’s honor — for all women have not the 
strength that men expect and require. of them.” 

“ ‘Before we part, however, I want to tell you— and I 
hope you will believe me — when I met you that night, I 
never dreamed of committing any greater sin. Of course. 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


227 


I knew I was sinning in allowing myself to love you — and 
I knew I was sinning in granting your request for a secret 
meeting; but I loved you so deeply and I had such blind, 
unquestioning faith in your love for me, that no thought 
of a greater evil ever came into my heart. If any one had 
warned me against trusting you — if any one had told me 
that you would lure me into evil, I would not have listened 
— I would not have believed it possible that a man could 
injure the woman he professed to love as you professed to 
love me. I only thought that by going to you that night 
I was giving you the greatest possible proof of my love 
for you, and my unfaltering faith in you. But you be- 
trayed my trust, Winburn, and a man cannot be guilty of 
a more cruel deed than that of persuading a woman into 
evil, when he knows that she shrinks with horror from it, 
and that she must pay the penalty of wrong-doing by a fu- 
ture of self-torture.” 

“ ‘I ought to have known the danger of secret meetings; 
I ought to have fled from temptation; I ought to have re- 
fused to entertain the first thought of a sinful love — but I 
was weak — I loved you so — I longed to be loved; and, 
Winburn, I swear to you, that though I had been a wife 
for one miserable month, I was as innocent and ignorant 
of “Nature’s deadly approaches” as any girl, and I had 
such faith in your protecting love for me. I believed that 
you would shield me from harm at any cost. I know, now, 
that a woman makes her first downward step to utter ruin 
when she commits the first small folly which her conscience 
and better judgment tell her is wrong; and after a woman 
has made one step into the path of error, it is so hard — 
oh! so hard to go back — but it is not so hard to go down- 
ward, downward, deeper into sin. Winburn, you knew 
that my husband left me for a three years’ trip, ere our 
honeymoon — faugh! the mockery of it! — had barely ex- 


228 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


pired, and that I never saw him again until one week be- 
fore the terrible accident that killed him. And you knew, 
also, that our marriage was not a “love match” — that it 
was all pre-arranged by our parents. Oh, Winburn! you 
knew that he had always loved another woman, and that 
our marriage was a miserable farce — and I think you 
might have spared me from further sorrow. But I must 
not reproach you. I know, now, that the feeling you had 
for me was not love; but when you pledged your love to 
me — when you promised to marry me — oh, Winburn, Win- 
burn! I trusted you — I believed in you as reverently as the 
Catholic devotee believes in the Mother of Christ. 

*■ ‘True, I had often read and heard of other women ask- 
ing the same pledge of the men they loved, and of men 
making and breaking the sacred pledge — but, like count- 
less thousands of other women, I did not believe that my 
lover, my darling, could be so base and so false. Win- 
burn, my love! my darling! my idol! mine no longer — oh! 
never mine — never really my very own — how can I bid you 
farewell? How can I eyer teach my heart to forget you? 

“‘Oh! had we never, never met. 

Or could this heart e’en now forget 
How linked, how blessed we might have been 
Had Fate not frowned so dark between!’ 

“‘But farewell! never again will you hear aught of 
poor Mona Foster. 

The reader’s voice ended in a pathetic little sob; for sev- 
eral moments we sat and stitched, in perfect silence — and 
then a little woman laid her sewing in her lap, raised her 
beautiful, velvety eyes, and said: “If women could only 
be convinced of man’s perfidy and treachery, Hades would 
be cheated of some of its saddest music — the music made 
by the dropping and mingling of ‘lost women’s tears’; but 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


229 


they cannot be convinced. Some writer has said: The 
young trust themselves alone with Nature, who cares only 
for life, and nothing for the higher things that make life 
worth the living.’ ‘To them who understand her deadly 
approaches, she can come least near with the power to 
harm.’ But there are so many women who do not under- 
stand her ‘deadly approaches’ until it is too late.” 

“A woman thinks and hopes that by making a full sur- 
render of herself to the man she loves she is binding him to 
her by a tie he can never rend asunder — but alas! it is a 
sweet hope ‘made ashes and dust’; yet she cannot believe, 
until it is too late, that the very sin which binds her heart 
to the man forever more, estranges the man’s heart from 
her. If the terrible sin could make the man’s life cling to 
the woman’s as hers clings to him, while the sin would not 
be any the less, yet the woman would be spared the awful, 
unutterable agony of finding herself despised and forsaken 
by the man for whom she sinned.” 

“Can the imagination picture any punishment more horri- 
ble, more agonizing, more heart-rending to a good woman, 
who has lost honor for the sake of love, than that of find- 
ing she has bartered her soul for a glittering, worthless 
bauble — for a love that was not love, but the baser passion 
— lust?” 

“Such a punishment ought to satisfy the most cruel and 
devilish devils, but it does not satisfy the world. The 
offender must forever wear the ‘scarlet letter.’ If women 
could only know before it is too late, a fractional part of the 
horror which inevitably follows such wrong-doing, they 
would resent all undue ‘physical advances’ from men, as 
they would resist the near approach of Satan as he appears 
in all the terror of horns and cloven foot; they would be- 
ware of ‘secret meetings,’ of granting ‘little half-hours’ and 
‘only a few moments’; they would beware of trusting 


230 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


themselves alone with Nature, or, in other words, alone with 
men.” 

*‘No, they would not — at least many of them would not,” 
spoke up a young woman whose face had the “dawn of 
passion and the halo of dreams lingering over it.”. “Do 
you see that lovely, bright-hued humming-bird? I would 
rather be that frail, fragile creature, with no soul to save or 
lose, and live my short, happy life, draining the sweets 
from honey-laden flowers, than to be what I am, dragging 
out this tame, weary existence, like a forsaken, forgotten 
blossom, withering, slowly withering, for want of water and 
the sun’s ‘warm lover kisses.’ I would rather quaff one 
rich, sweet draught of happiness, than to ‘drain the slow 
drops that fill the diluted cup of earthly joy.’ ” 

“That is because the ‘divine bell, hanging within the 
belfry of your soul,’ has never tolled its warning; and be- 
cause you have never known anything of the terrible an- 
guish that fills the souls of fallen women.” 

“The questions that present themselves to my mind 
whenever I hear these sad, sad stories of life,” said one of 
the members, “are: ‘What is the cause of so much evil? 
and, what is the remedy?’ ” 

“I think,” replied a stern, sour-faced, angular woman, 
“that the cause of all the ‘evil’ lies with the women them- 
selves ; no woman is ever tempted unless she invites tempta- 
tion; and no woman can ever fall unless she is tempted — 
therefore she has no one to blame but herself when she 
drifts into evil ways. Here am I, twenty-three years old, 
and no one has ever dared to tempt me — because I have 
never conducted myself in a way to invite temptation.” And 
after her speech she shut her mouth with a vim that re- 
minded one of a steel trap closing viciously upon some un- 
wary mouse. 

Just at my side sat a pretty woman, whose roguish, laugh- 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


231 


ing eyes lit up a lively, mischievous face that made the 
owner seem to be a stray bit of “imprisoned sunshine”; she 
leaned toward me and said, sotto voce: “If God had made 
every woman like that one, the world never would have 
known a tempted or fallen woman ; what a pity other wom- 
en are not as lacking in attractions and fascinations ! Twen- 
ty-three, indeed! Why, she’s forty if she’s a day.” 

At that moment some one turned to me and said: “Mrs. 
Delamar, tell us your ideas on the subject.” 

“My ideas?” I repeated, questioningly. “Well, let me 
see,” I said, thoughtfully; “the subject is such a deep one 
that I cannot do it justice in this off-hand manner. But 
I think the principal cause of so much evil lies with the 
parents of our boys — ” 

“No!” Oh, no!” “No!” “No!” cried a number of 

dissenting voices. 

“Yes,” I replied, “I believe my statement to be correct. 
We parents train our daughters to be pure and virtuous; 
we talk to them and warn them to beware of wicked men; 
we teach them to guard themselves against the tempter’s 
wiles; we lavish our care and our hearts’ best energies in 
the desperate effort to save our precious ‘ewe lambs’ from a 
fate sadder and more bitter than death. But we neglect our 
sons — and in doing so we fail to grapple evil at its fountain- 
head. Evil boys make evil men; and how can we expect to 
rear pure boys when we allow them to run about the streets 
and listen to the ‘smutty’ talk of men, who stand at street 
corners, or loaf around and make indecent remarks about 
every woman as she passes?” 

“How can we hope to ‘remedy the evil’ when fathers set 
their sons a bad example — an example of disrespect to- 
ward women? How can we hope to save our girls from 
temptation and ruin, when we fail to train our sons to be 
pure and virtuous, and to duly honor the ‘weaker sex’? 


232 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


For, is it not as true as the plainest truth, that so long as 
men continue to tempt women into sin, so long will the 
poor, weak, loving, foolish creatures continue to fall from 
honor?” 

“When men become big-hearted and big-minded, honor- 
able and noble and unselfish enough to guard the wife, 
sister and daughter of every man, as he would have every 
man guard the honor of his own — then, and not till then, 
will the ‘evil’ be remedied.” 

“Well, Mrs. Delamar, do you believe a woman is never 
tempted unless she invites temptation?” some one asked. 

“That depends altogether upon what one considers as 
‘inviting temptation,’ ” I replied. “You know there are 
numbers and numbers of men who have no better sense 
than to think a woman is inviting temptation, simply be- 
cause she is vivacious, gay, brilliant, full of life and the 
joy of living. Does any one believe that ‘Collatine’s fair 
love, Lucrece the chaste,’ invited temptation from ‘Lust- 
breathed Tarquin’? or that the innocent, guileless Margue- 
rite invited temptation from the wicked Faust?” 

“While we are on this subject, tell me if you consider man 
as woman’s natural protector?” 

“I think, in a question involving the gratification or sac- 
rifice of what men call love, man ceases to be ‘woman’s 
natural protector,’ and becomes her bitterest foe— a foe 
who destroys not the body, the worthless clay body, but 
the immortal soul.” 

“I am loth to make such a terrible statement, but it is 
the truth, and men know it is the truth. Of course there 
are ‘exceptions,’ but the exceptions are ‘few and far be- 
tween.’ ” 

“What lesson is taught by these sad stories of Life — of 
fallen women?” asked another woman, whose face had in 
it a “history.” 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


233 


“That the great majority of men are not to be trusted/' 
I replied, promptly; “also that men employ numerous and 
various methods of luring women to ruin, and that it be- 
hooves women to guard against any inclination or desire 
to yield to a lover the smallest privileges. The world is 
so full of these sad stories, all girls and women should take 
them as a warning against ‘trusting themselves alone with 
Nature' — or trifling with passion as a plaything.” 

“The great mystery to me,” said a sweet-faced bride, 
whose “honeymoon” was barely past, “is, how a woman 
can lose her honor. How can she so far forget herself — 
her modesty — all her womanly instincts, as to submit to a 
man’s unlawful love. The very thought thrills my whole 
being with horror and revulsion. Why, it seems to me a 
fearful ordeal” — and then she paused, blushed, and looking 
at me shyly, said: “Surely, Mrs. Delamar, good women 
never deliberately consent to commit the ‘unpardonable 
sin’ by which they lose their honor, do they?” 

“I think not,” I answered, saddening as I remembered 
the number of instances in which women had lost their 
honor by trusting themselves alone with the men they 
loved, and indulging in passionate caresses, until conscience 
and principle and judgment all swooned under the intox- 
ication of love, leaving them helpless and defenseless vic- 
tims to man’s cruel, unpitying lust.” 

“Have you forgotten the story of Esther Waters? It 
is only a novel — the story of a servant girl — but all the 
same it is a tragedy that is being enacted today in all 
classes of society, from the highest to the lowest. The 
servant girl meets her lover in the ‘warm valleys,’ and the 
heiress meets hers in richly furnished parlors, or perfume- 
laden conservatories, and human nature is weak. Women 
cannot be always strong to fight against the sin they have 
set themselves to conquer, and it will continue to be a 


234 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


hopelessly unequal struggle until the laws of society, of 
the church, of the world, force men into morality, by con- 
demning them to a punishment equal to that which falls 
upon women. I am bowed down with grief and sorrow 
when I think of the present condition of the world and 
woman’s lot. Truly the life of woman is full of woe. Or, 
perhaps — 

“ ‘A little love and laughter,’ many tears — 

That is our life. ’Tis like an autumn day ; 

A gleam of sunshine in the heaven appears, 

A beam from those blue depths that may not stay ; 

Then rain unceasing; withered leaves in showers 
Come rustling down; so with this life of ours. 

'A smile to kindle love ; a tender look 
From lovelier depths than heaven’s brightest blue; 

One golden chapter in a dreary book. 

And then life takes again its dull-gray hue. 

Yet, if forgetfulness could make it bright. 

Would we forego remembrance, if we might?’ ” 


PART 11. 


CHAPTER 1. 

“Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion’s paws, 

And make the earth devour her own sweet brood. 

Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger’s jaws 
And burn the long-lived phoenix in her blood. 

Make glad and sorry seasons, as thou fleetest, 

And do whate’er thou wilt, swift-footed Time, 

To the wide world and her fading sweets; 

But I forbid thee one most heinous crime; 

O, carve not with thy hours my love’s fair brow. 

Nor draw no lines there with thy antique pen.” 

The years have silently flown, since I first begun to write 
this story. Some poet has said: — 

“When time is flown, how it fled 
It is better neither to ask nor tell; 

Leave the dead moments to bury their dead.” 

Well, I shall not take that poet’s advice. Advice, like 
medicine, is easy to give; advice, like medicine, is nauseat- 
ing to take, and so I am not going to take it, for I shall tell 
“how it fled,” or at least a part of it. 

As Paul and I were on our way home, having grown 
weary of wandering about, we met with a terrible railway 
accident, in which there was great loss of life and many 
injured. 

Paul and the children escaped unhurt, but I received 
an injury so serious that for days life hung, as it were, by 
a mere thread, and for weeks and weeks life and death 
waged a desperate war with one another, and many doubts 
were felt as to which would come off victor. At last, life 


235 


236 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


conquered; my physicians ordered me to Italy, that 
Mecca of all invalids. 

It was impossible for Paul to go with me, on account 
of some “business troubles” which had grown up in his 
absence. For him to have left at such a crisis would have 
brought on inevitable financial ruin. So I bore the pain 
of the bitter disappointment, with the same Spartan hero- 
ism that characterized my childish sufferings, and de- 
clared my preference to going without him. Of course the 
declaration deceived no one, but it helped us all to bear 
up more bravely than if I had lamented and “made moan.” 
But several weeks passed before I was strong enough to 
travel, and in the meantime Paul nursed me with a tire- 
less devotion that was beautiful in its self-forgetfulness. 
He said little, for he was naturally a grave, silent man. 
But when the hour of parting came, and he took me in his 
arms to kiss me good-by, his eyes met mine with a look 
that seemed to pierce to the deepest depths of my soul. 
It was only a “look,” but from his heart to mine, was 
flashed a silent, beautiful message that buoyed me up and 
sent the current of life-blood thrilling through my being. 
Through that look was administered the sweetest elixir 
of life — the elixir of love. 

Thank God, Paul and I had not “The little hearts that 
know not how to forgive.” And I knew that, at last, my 
life had found “What some have found so sweet.” 

“There’s a bliss beyond all that the minstrel has told. 
When two, that are linked in one heavenly tie, 

With heart never changing, and brow never cold. 

Love on through all ills, and love on till they die! 

One hour of a passion so sacred is worth 
Whole ages of heartless and wandering bliss; 

And oh! if there be an Elysium on earth, 

It is this, it is this,” 


CHAPTER II. 


“We strayed from each other, too far, it may be. 

Nor, wantonly wandering, then did I see 
How deep was my need of thee, dearest — how great 
Was thy claim on my heart and thy share in my fate.’' 

While I was basking under the sunny skies of Italy 
(where had been the birthplace of so many famous men) 
wooing health, from her balmy air and glorious sunshine, 
I had a very precious letter from dear Paul. In it he 
quoted the above beautiful lines from “Lucile.” And then 
he told me how sadly he “missed me,” and wondered if it 
were possible that I should miss him as much. 

I answered with the following sweet poem, which had 
just that day drifted to me on a scrap of old newspaper: — 

“How do I miss thee? As the sun is missed 
When down it sinks beneath the arctic sky; 

The grief bides with me as when last we kissed 
And sought to hide our tears and say good-by. 

Part of my life, the current of my blood 

Grows strong within me through thy faith and love ; 
Thou art the ark that bears me o’er the flood. 

Each word a green leaf from its seeking dove. 

How do I miss thee? As the warmth is missed 
When struggling pilgrims brave the wintry night. 

How do I love thee? As the air is kissed 
When dying man revives and sees the light. 

Oh, loyal heart, that heaven has sent to me, 

237 


238 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


That thy true life with my sad one may blend; 

I would not fear all danger yet to be, 

If thou couldst walk beside me to the end.” 

And then — ah! how good it was to be at home once 
more. Oh! how happy I have been ever since that sweet 
day of our reunion — or rather, I should say, our union, for 
alas, and alas! we had never really been united before. Of 
course Paul and I did not develop into saints or “angels.” 
There are days when pain and trials (such as must neces- 
sarily fall to the lot of every mortal) throw me into little 
peevish, complaining spells. But my dear husband recog- 
nizes the effort I am making tO be “good,” and to over- 
come the morbidness of my past life, and is always kind 
and patient. And, too, he realizes that in our past 
“wedded misery” he was not altogether blameless. 

Paul, also, has his “bad days,” when “everything goes 
wrong” — some one, whom he has considered a faithful 
friend, has proven himself a traitor, or business cares assail 
him, or some other of the “thousand and one” trials of 
life, throws a shadow over him and makes his grave face 
something graver. But, at last, we have learned our lesson 
of forbearance — a lesson which every husband and wife 
should learn at the very “starting-point” of married life. 
(Oh, how much happier this world of ours would be!) 
Often, as I sit alone in the gloaming, waiting for the sound 
of his footsteps, I fall into a retrospective mood, and for a 
little while I grow sad, with the thought of those wasted 
years — ay, worse than “wasted years.” And I remember^ 
with grief and shame, the time when my soul was not great 
enough to appreciate my good, noble husband. 

Then, from the selfishness of self, my thought sweeps 
out across the earth, to the thousands and thousands of 
unhappy marriages — and I think, with deep regret, of the 
husbands and wives who have allowed themselves to “drift 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


239 


apart,” whose hearts are “eating themselves out” in a vain 
longing for — the moon; and my eyes grow heavy with un- 
shed tears; my quivering lips sadden in sympathy with the 
woe of others, and I begin to sing softly some pretty words 
which I found and have set to music — 

“I wonder why hearts change so carelessly. 

Forgetful of the fires they have set 
Aglow in other hearts. 

Forgetful of the trembling lips once wet 
With dews of kisses. 

I wonder why it comes — forgetfulness — 

To steal away the loyalty and truth 
That once was glorified. 

Leaving, alone, a formless shadow — ruth 
For those forgotten. 

I wonder why we cannot, earnestly. 

Command our loves as we command our lives, 

And prove it sweetly true 

That love remains to him who truly strives 
To grow in constancy. 

I wonder why we never know ourselves — 

Can never look into ourselves and see 
The hidden springs that wait 

A magic touch to burst forth mightily 
And ’whelm our startled souls. 

I wonder why once-earnest vows, enshrined 
Within the inner temples of our love. 

Grow faint with lapsing time. 

Like echoes from some whispering voice above 
The far-off, floating clouds. — ” 


240 


LIFE— AS HILDA FOUND IT. 


“1 wonder why!” 

Ah! I hear the click of the gate as it ‘‘swings to;” 
I hear a quick step coming nearer and nearer — a grave, 
kind voice says, “Eh, little woman! too late for you to be 
out in the damp air.” And then, two strong arms are 
around me ; loving caresses chase away the sadness, and I — 
oh! shall I confess it? — forget the “world, and the woe of 
others.” 

And I do not sigh over “Maud” as I used to do. The 
burden of my unhappiness has 

* * *“fallen from me; 

It is buried in the sea, 

And only the sorrow of others 
Throws its shadow over me.” 


“Threefold the stride of Time from first to last! 
Loitering slow the Future creepeth — 
Arrow-swift the Present sweepeth — 

And motionless forever stands the Past.” 


THE END. 






